The total number of iPhones is a proper subset of the total number of iOS mobile devices, which also includes iPod Touches and iPads. So the figure is not impossible - it just means that nearly everyone who owns an iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad uses the Facebook app.
Would not most of you agree that an entire person is described by the genetic data contained withing one stem cell? Or at least within one sperm cell and one egg cell?
No. That's the whole point. DNA encodes the protein ingredients needed to grow a person as well as their delivery schedule (i.e., when their manufacture is turned on and off). DNA does not encode how to assemble those proteins into a person. The assembly instructions are implicit in protein folding (unsolved), complex multi-protein interactions (unsolved), the behavior of an existing, fully functioning living cell (i.e., the egg, incompletely solved), the complex behavior of the thousands of different differentiated cell types as the person gestates (unsolved), and the environment (uterine, intercellular, etc., again, incompletely solved).
Trying to make a person from DNA is akin to building a functioning self assembling supercomputer given nothing but a Radio Shack invoice for transistors, and various low level electronic components; only a person is many orders of magnitude more complex than the most powerful existing supercomputer.
if you rtfa you'll see that the million lines of code only gives you the proteins that make up the brain - i.e., it gives you a parts list and a delivery schedule, not a set of assembly intstructions. The genome doesn't give you how the proteins interact, in usually complex ways (i.e., three or more proteins interacting simultaneously), in billions of cells in parallel, over the course of 9 months to give us an infant brain (even leaving aside the tremendous amount of development that takes place in the brain during childhood).
As the author of tfa writes: To simplify it so a computer science guy can get it, Kurzweil has everything completely wrong. The genome is not the program; it's the data.
IOW, the program is the developing organism itself, the complex protein interactions and it's (uterine) environment none of which are encoded in the genome. The organism uses the data encoded in the genome to produce proteins which interact with each other and the organism and its environment to grow cells which eventually form a brain.
The mistake in Kurzweil's thinking is the typical mistake engineers make when dealing with biology; the enviroments into which engineers place their designs do not typically spontaneously cooperate in the construction of the engineer's design. When an engineer designs a circuit board, his lab bench doesn't spontaneously start soldering connections and adding components for him and automatically complete parts of the design
without his explicit instructions. But the organism does precisely this with proteins syntesised from the genome.
As a result, the genome alone cannot possibly tell you how to "make" an organism, because the genome only tells you the parts list and delivery schedule for the organism, not the assembly instructions. The assembly instructions are not explicit anywhere in the system; the assembly instructions are implicit in the combination of the complex behavior of the cells of the developing organism, the uterine environment and the very complex ways the proteins sythensized from the genome interact.
In order to extract the actuall assembly instructions we'd need a full blown molecular biology simulator that could correctly simulate:
1. protein folding (still unsolved)
2. comlex multi-protein interaction (still unsolved)
3. simultaneous behavior and development, (i.e., in parallel) of billions of living cells each undergoing trillions of chemical reactions per second (computationally prohibitive)
IOW, it's not going to happen in the next 10 years.
Wilhelm Richard Wagner was born in 1813 and died in 1883 which makes him a 19th Century German composer, not an 18th c. German composer.
Remember, here in 2010 it's the 21st century; in 1910 it was the 20th c.; in 1810 it was the 19th c., etc.
Only post to this article that should be modded +5 informative, and it's scored +1.
Please mod parent up!
What I want to know is why so many people will quickly dismiss the writings of von Daniken as "crackpot" or whatever, but they never say anything about all the people who believe these religions.
Because Erik von Daniken's supporters don't number in the millions and carry guns.
They seem to agree on this, and think Flash is the way to go (see http://www.infoworld.com/print/125721). Either that is BS or this article is BS, they can't claim both. Everything they say could be said for Flash and vice-versa.
Sure they can have it both ways, just as long as it increases page hits on the infoworld website!
I think this is the first time I've heard someone as senior as [Redhat CEO] Whitehurst admit something rather profound: that open source solutions save money for customers by doing away with the fat margins for existing computer companies – and thus shrink the overall market.
Giving your work product away and hoping that someone will pay you for it ensures that you will make less money than people who demand fair pay for their work.
Perceived - i.e., how you felt about it, not what you knew about it. If your feelings contain any anxiety, it will show up as a possible lie - so heightened physiological arousal of any kind registers as a lie.
It is not a lie detector, it is a stress detector, but that sucks at distinguishing lies because many people feel stress when asked certain questions even when they answer them perfectly truthfully. Many people feel little or no stress when they tell giant whopper lies. So polygraphs are completely unreliable as lie detectors.
Not so. The control shaft only has to spin a set of planetary gears, while the output shaft has to drive the entire vehicle. Their torque requirements are orders of magnitude different.
All you'd need is strong enough brakes - if the power to the control shaft failed, the brakes would cause it to spin anyway because the output shaft would be effectively stopped by the brakes.
Of course once you release the brake the output shaft would jump immediately to highest speed...
At that point, I'd just shut the engine
I'm always looking for a new idea that will be more productive than its cost. -- David Rockefeller
