Comment Re:Is it a testable theory? (Score 1) 6
Absolutely not testable (see section on Provability). I personally don't like the connotation of religion, because it assumes some form of "practicing". A "belief" might be a better word.
Comment Re:Difference? (Score 1) 6
The main difference I'm trying to make between a simulation and a logical consequence is that of a materialized world (in the simulation), which would require a lot of computational power in the outside world. Logical consequences "exist" even if no one has ever thought of them, and hence they are also not limited by any sort of computational needs.
Submission + - Life is not a Simulation but a Thought Experiment (github.io) 6
moglito writes: Life is not a Simulation but a Thought Experiment
tl;dr: No need to simulate life for it to exist — "it's the thought that counts".
I have been entertaining this thought for a while and finally wrote it down. Would love to hear what people think, in particular in terms of how this might relate to existing philosophical arguments. I'm also really interested in other fundamental results about logic itself, similar to Gödel's incompleteness theorem, that might add corollaries to this theory.
tl;dr: No need to simulate life for it to exist — "it's the thought that counts".
I have been entertaining this thought for a while and finally wrote it down. Would love to hear what people think, in particular in terms of how this might relate to existing philosophical arguments. I'm also really interested in other fundamental results about logic itself, similar to Gödel's incompleteness theorem, that might add corollaries to this theory.
Comment Is the claim that current sudo is not memory safe? (Score 5, Informative) 116
I find the title misleading. It suggests that the current sudo is not memory-safe, while in reality it is just not written in a memory-safe language. That attribute means very different things when talking about a language and a program. It honestly seems a bit arrogant from the Rust-fan-block to use that description, as if programs could not be memory safe unless they are written in a language that guarantees memory safety.
Comment Civilization (Score 2) 228
Hard to imagine what turn-based strategy would look like today without this long running series.
Comment SSPL is still very open of a source (Score 5, Interesting) 120
What all these haters miss to point out is *why* these companies need to change their license: to prevent AWS and other cloud providers to offer a directly competing service on the source that the company, and not AWS, maintains. Sweet deal for Amazon, ruinous for the company that *actually* pays employees to maintain the open-source project. So the solution is to minimally reduce the rights granted under the license to prevent exactly that. In fact *most* uses people care about are still permitted under the Server Side Public License. So claiming that this would now be closed source is garbage. It's similar to the old fight over "GPL is the only real open-source license" because it is militantly open-source: forcing all derivatives to adopt the same license. So please stop claiming that you are the judge of what is open-source and what isn't. The discussion needs to be more nuanced. Does Redis' license change *really* stop you from building on it the way you have been, or are you just arguing an ideological case?
Comment There are a lot of UV-C robots (Score 2) 17
There are lot of startups offering UV-C robots, not just UVD Robots, which seems to be getting all the attention. There is list of over 40 such robots from all over the world here.
Comment Re:A usability improvement (Score 1) 26
Great suggestion! Sorry for the delay. This is implemented now. We've actually already added it a few days ago and I had meant to respond earlier but forgot.
Submission + - Tracking progress in curbing the spread of COVID-19 (bibbase.org)
moglito writes: Slashdot readers might be interested in a tool that we at BibBase.org have created for tracking the evolution of COVID-19 in different countries and regions. It is based on the same data the Johns Hopkins map uses, but allows tracking individual regions (to the degree the data is up to date).
Using this web app it is for instance possible to see that some countries have been able to break the exponential growth in cases. This preselection for instance shows China, South Korea, Norway, and Italy on a log-scale: https://bibbase.org/other/covi.... It is visible from this that after China also South Korea has been able to curb the spread, and now Norway is showing signs of that as well. In contrast, Italy still seems nowhere near the turning point.
We hope that this tool can help people as well as decision makers understand the relative effectiveness of the approaches used by these countries to curb the spread. We believe it also shows the importance of testing (which has been very good in South Korea). More importantly perhaps to readers, we feel that this is a sign of hope that it is possible to get this under control and that everyone should feel motivated to abide by the strict self distancing we are all trying to enforce. Signs of hope seem rare these days, so we wanted to share this.
A few additional insights found in this data described here: https://bibbase.org/blog/covid...
Using this web app it is for instance possible to see that some countries have been able to break the exponential growth in cases. This preselection for instance shows China, South Korea, Norway, and Italy on a log-scale: https://bibbase.org/other/covi.... It is visible from this that after China also South Korea has been able to curb the spread, and now Norway is showing signs of that as well. In contrast, Italy still seems nowhere near the turning point.
We hope that this tool can help people as well as decision makers understand the relative effectiveness of the approaches used by these countries to curb the spread. We believe it also shows the importance of testing (which has been very good in South Korea). More importantly perhaps to readers, we feel that this is a sign of hope that it is possible to get this under control and that everyone should feel motivated to abide by the strict self distancing we are all trying to enforce. Signs of hope seem rare these days, so we wanted to share this.
A few additional insights found in this data described here: https://bibbase.org/blog/covid...
Comment What a terrible summary (Score 4, Informative) 49
"Detection of Terahertz Magnetic Resonance Could Revolutionize Electronics" was the headline, but no mention of *how* terahertz detection would revolutionize electronics. So I went and got the scoop of why this actually matters (which is what 95% of readers will care about more than about how they did it):
Current communication technology uses gigahertz microwaves. "For higher bandwidth, however, the trend is to move toward terahertz microwaves," Shi said. "The generation of terahertz microwaves is not difficult, but their detection is. Our work has now provided a new pathway for terahertz detection on a chip."
Submission + - Robotic grocery delivery in high-rise apartment buildings (venturebeat.com)
moglito writes: Autonomous in-door delivery robots coupled with automated fridges in the basement of high-rise apartment buildings could create a "never-empty" fridge for residents. Coupled with AI algorithms for learning what residents like to consume, and algorithms for automatically restocking those items via a network of suppliers or logistics companies, this "bot-mart" could make grocery shopping a — boring and time consuming — thing of the past. Cheap, self-driving car services may make the need for a garage obsolete. Will robots similarly reduce the need for a kitchen next? In high-density, urban areas where the cost of living is skyrocketing, this would certainly be a welcome relief from the constant lack of space.
Comment or there are simply twice as many job boards? (Score 2) 142
It may just as well be that the number of competing job boards doubles ever year and the postings distribute equally. Reminds me of TV channels: they kept increasing until eventually no one cared anymore and cut cable all together and became more selective again about what they subscribe to (netflix, hulu, hbo, etc.). With this constant increase in job boards, they may all become collective irrelevant eventually and maybe people are indeed no longer posting jobs on them. So maybe both of these effects are at play? a job-boards bubble?
Submission + - Uber, lyft, sidecar banned from San Francisco Airport (sfgate.com)
An anonymous reader writes: California regulators are threatening to revoke permits for on-demand ride companies UberX, Lyft, Sidecar, Summon and Wingz unless they stop giving rides to and from airports within two weeks.
The move could lead to the state shutting down the companies' operations.
Flouting the airport rules also flouts regulations that the CPUC set up for the new generation of ride companies to operate in California. In a clear rebuttal to an argument often made by the ride companies, Peevey wrote: "These safety requirements should not hinder your creativity nor should they impede your innovation."
The move could lead to the state shutting down the companies' operations.
Flouting the airport rules also flouts regulations that the CPUC set up for the new generation of ride companies to operate in California. In a clear rebuttal to an argument often made by the ride companies, Peevey wrote: "These safety requirements should not hinder your creativity nor should they impede your innovation."
Submission + - 'Pop-Up' Bus Service Learns Riders' Rhythms, Creates Routes Accordingly (nytimes.com)
moglito writes: 'This new-old method of transport has comfortable seats and Wi-Fi. But its real innovation is in its routing. It is a “pop up” bus service, with routes dictated by millions of bits of data that show where people are and where they need to go. The private service uses chartered buses and is run by a start-up technology company called Bridj.' 'Bridj collects millions of bits of data about people’s commutes from Google Earth, Facebook, Foursquare, Twitter, LinkedIn, the census, municipal records and other sources. “We crunch these millions and millions of data points through a number of algorithms that are existing, or that we’re refining, to tell us where people are living and working,” Mr. George said. “And through our special sauce, we’re able to determine how a city moves.”'
Submission + - Virginia State Government Favors Cartels, Cracks Down on Uber, Lyft (wtop.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Talk about regulatory capture! As radio station WTOP reports "The Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles says that ride services Lyft and Uber are violating state law and must stop operating immediately. The DMV sent cease and desist orders to both companies Thursday." Who benefits most? It's not the people who are voting with their dollars and feet — seems more like the current stable of taxi drivers and others blessed by the state of Virginia. Good thing there's no call for or benefit from greater per-car occupancy, or experimentation more generally with with disruptive disintermediation. Given enough bribe money down the road, I'm sure a deal can be struck, though.
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"A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices." -- William James
