This happened a number of years ago when ReplayTV offered a feature that automatically skipped commercials. A bunch of studios sued them. The result was that the new DVRs required the users to press a "scene skip" button on the remote to skip over the commercial break. ReplayTV was later bought by DirectTV.

I too will wait for BTRFS to mature. I tried BTRFS on a decent SSD and found the performance to be terrible compared to XFS, which is my current filesystem of choice. I found that the performance was especially bad when I tried to move my Cyrus IMAP server over to it. The other thing that bothered me is that I could find little information on what happens when space runs low. While writes are supposed to be extremely fast, I found that not to be the case when restoring the 100K plus email files onto the partition. This was with a fairly decent Intel SSD. Granted, this was with the OpenSUSE 3.1.10 kernel but I think I'll wait a while longer before trying it again.

The tools for BTRFS look interesting, but then again I think I'll wait until they mature some more. At this point the best filesystem tools I have found are the ones for XFS, especially tools like xfs_dump, xfs_restore, xfs_fsr and xfs_db. Also, out of all of the filesysems I have tried, XFS seems to be the fastest in most cases, especially with the recent changes to reduce meta-data writes. I have also found it to be quite fault tolerant with fast recovery.

Your definition of math is very limited. Descriptive Geometry is math too.

Path finding systems may use imprecise weight function when making decisions - calculating weights is a major burden.

Using cameras involves image analysis. In essence, you're working with what is a bunch of noise, and you analyze it for meaningful data, by averaging over a whole bunch of unreliable samples. If you can do it 15 times faster at cost of introducing 5% more noise in the input stage, you're a happy man.

In essence, if input data is burdened by noise of any kind - and only "pure" data like typed or read from disk isn't, any kind of real world data like sensor readouts, images or audio contains noise, the algorithm must be resistant to said noise, and a little more of it coming from math mistakes can't break it. Only after the algorithm reduces say 1MB of raw pixels into 400 bytes of vectorized obstacles you may want to be more precise.... and even then small skews won't break it completely.

Also, what about genetic algorithms, where "mistakes" are introduced into the data artificially? They are very good at some classes of problems, and unreliable calculations at certain points would probably be advantageous to the final outcome.

A friend has a smartphone that can either run Skype audio calls or use WPA. The CPU is not strong enough to run both. So, his accesspoint uses WEP.

A few weeks ago, I foolishly ran a strange executable file that one of fellow slashdotters posted in a comment. As someone who doesn't know much about computers, at the time, I thought nothing of it. "Why would my fellow slashdotter want to hurt me?" Following this line of thought, I ran the file without question.

It was pretending to be a strange anti-virus software I'd never heard of from a company I'd never heard of.

I'm not going to give you a yes or no, because I don't have to. This is Slashdot, not a grand jury. And, because the answer is more nuanced.

Although Steve is gone, Apple is continuing everything that both Richard and I didn't like about their business. So, Steve's malign influence on people's computing continues unabated.

Like I said, I could have written it better than Richard, because Richard has problems with empathy. Had I written it, it would have been more graceful.

Steve also had no shortage of head problems. What an idiot for not retiring when he was first diagnosed - but I guess the public Steve Jobs was the only Steve Jobs there was, and he couldn't stop. Besides his foolish continuance of work, an eating disorder contributed to his demise. He did end up becoming the richest guy in the graveyard.

I was also offended by the New Yorker cover, and I think Richard was too.

Nobody should be surprised that there was much that is negative about Steve. I do oppose Apple's way of business, which is high on DRM and control of the user. Were I writing the same piece, I think I could have said it better than Richard.

I think the saddest part is that Dennis Ritchie, who really invented the stuff of our modern world, died around the same time and in comparison to Steve, was unlamented.

Well. we can still send a half a thousand robotic rovers to Mars for a year much cheaper than one man for a week, with no return ticket.

The problem is even 50 years ago there were things that no robot could do and you needed a man on place, to do them. With all the air, food, water, radiation shielding, waste processing and all this stuff robots don't need. Just because robots were too primitive. And 50 years ago we had the cold war and space race with weekly budgets exceeding yearly budget of nowadays.

Nowadays there is no work that can be done by a human, that can't be done better by a robot costing less than full life support system for the human.

I say: send a bunch of robots. Have them build a good self-sustainable base that will withstand decades of use. Send humans on one-way trip. Develop a return vessel while they work on Mars. Send it to bring them back when its ready.

Actually, quite a few shuttles exploded or crashed on the first few takeoffs. Of course they were unmanned prototypes/dummies so no casualties. Only after the design was proven safe to fly the actual flights began.

Because we all know that all the agencies of the US Government work together seamlessly to develop and implement policy:

FDA: Protect the children from radiation

TSA: Protecting the public from terrorists requires us to irradiate the public

FDA: Radiation is bad

TSA: Radiation is good

FDA: Too much radiation for kids is bad

TSA: Radiation is harmless

FDA: Think of the children!

TSA: The children might be terrorists

Anyone else surprised?