But, more likely, it's just a play on a reason a Stargate (when unaided by some hostile energy source or time dilation field) just shuts off after 38 minutes with no explanation.
However in Stargate the actual 38 minutes thing isn't a computer limitation it is a physical one. In the original show (i.e. SG1) Carter said it is "impossible" due to physics for it to stay open longer, and they also established that with enough raw power (e.g. blackhole, ancient device, etc) it could be kept open longer or near indefinitely, it just wasn't possible with the normal power the Stargate needs to operate.
Keep in mind they did exceed 38 minutes many times with different explanations each time[0] none of which were computer related. It is also worth noting that earth in the show built their own DHD which presumably would have different computer limitations than the ancient built DHD (and as they established when all DHDs in the universe died except theirs due to the malware).
The basic conceit in writing this story is that when you only have access to an area of physics through poorly understood reverse engineered xenotech, a lot of arbitrary constraints imposed by the tech start to look like physical laws.
> In the original show (i.e. SG1) Carter said it is "impossible" due to physics for it to stay open longer
In a show like Stargate, "impossible" is really just another way of saying "It would require overcoming a series of increasingly unlikely and insurmountable problems for that to be possible." Which, of course, they then use for a plot device in later (or the same!) episodes as they blow past those increasingly unlikely and insurmountable problems. :)
> Carter said it is "impossible" due to physics for it to stay open longer
At the beginning of the story it's implied that things like that are why Carter would be upset. Because the physics they had thought they had learned from the stargate hardware turned out to be software limitations instead. It's not like humans are ever capable of creating a wormhole to test for themselves.
Later on, when Carter gives a lecture on wormhole physics at an Air Force cadet academy, the teenage protagonist of that episode reacts in the same way, and Carter gives an "I thought that way once, but then I saw enough compelling evidence to change my mind about what's possible" speech.
> It is also worth noting that earth in the show built their own DHD which presumably would have different computer limitations than the ancient built DHD
The gate itself has control crystals as you can dial out without a DHD if you just give it power and some elbow grease. The 38 minute cutoff is probably in that code.
They must have run out of code space in the gate and had to offload some of the code to the DHD. :D The correlative update routine for the coordinate system is in the DHD for example so the earth gate could originally only dial Abydos until they added that to their homebrew DHD.
In Erlang you need to have explicit number of arguments and need to explicitly implement them.
Or, you know, just use lists as parameters. That's the standard Erlang pattern for unknown parameters lengths (e.g. io:format("debug ~s because ~p~n", [SomeString, SomeType]))
Firstly, this still requires a mechanism which underlies the [ ... ] notation for evaluating a sequence of any number of expressions and constructing a list.
In Lisp dialects, that is done by a variadic function:
(list 1 2 3 4 ...)
Of course, if we don't need to indirect on this function, we could implement it as a macro (supposing further that we have variadic macros for compile time, but not variadic functions for run time).
The macro would turn (list 1 2 3) into the non-variadic calls (cons 1 (cons 2 (cons 3 nil))).
I imagine that's a conceptual facsimile of what Erlang's list constructor notation is doing.
Erlang has variadic features in its read syntax; without a doubt its BNF is chock full of "zero or more of ..." grammar productions. The function defining mechanism lets you define a function which has any number of arguments; just that number has to be fixed for that function. So the mechanism itself enjoys variadic application. Here it is asked to define a three-arg function, here a ten-arg, ...
We can simulate some aspects of variadic application with syntactic sugar, but not all. A Lisp function call which specifies five arguments can call a function which requires exactly five arguments, or a function which requires three arguments, followed by variadic ones.
For instance, if we have a callback registration interface that passes five arguments, the client can supply a fixed arity function, or a variadic one.
I suppose that if everything is static, that can still be worked out. The compiler sees that a variadic function with only two required args is passed as a callback that must be 5-ary, so it inserts a conversion shim: an anonymous function which takes exactly 5 parameters and applies them to the 3+rest function.
LFE macros can have variable number of arguments. The compiler does very little in helping with this as there are in principle no inter-module dependencies. This is a requirement of the dynamic code handling which allows you to reload any module at any time without any requirements on the contents. All checking is done at run-time. This is a basic property of the Erlang system and to make something which is fully compatible you have to follow this.
One way to have made LFE fully variadic in its functions would have been to have made each function only take one argument which is a list of the arguments in the call. This would have been easy to do but made it very difficult to interface LFE with the rest of the Erlang system in a clean way.
I think io:format has fixed number of arguments(2), the text that you use as a template and the second parameter is a list of things that you will be using in the template.
allocate a separate list node for each piece of data
So many programmers don't even consider "overhead" of data when writing things. But, most of the time it doesn't matter. Do you need a list of ten things? Great. Do whatever. Do you need a list of a billion things? Then you need to rethink everything from the bottom up.
> So many programmers don't even consider "overhead" of data when writing things.
Because they're using managed languages where the amount of overhead per object can't be reduced to zero. And also because, in exchange for that overhead, they get other benefits, like compacting garbage collection. But you don't get this in C.
If a user of a library wants to supply their own allocator, they must provide a version of realloc that acts as free() for the (p,0) case. That's the semantics the library expects, observe them. Internally the lib may look at whether a custom realloc is set, and fallback to malloc/free if it's not.
My grandfather was very racist and never changed as long as he lived. I'm glad most people aren't immortal. There's no guarantee a full AI wouldn't be tempted by evil and just become republican (or worse, a VC).
It can also recursively improve itself.
So can people (the more you know, the more you can learn), but most don't. It's important to remember "intelligence" isn't an abstract concept—intelligence is also embodied in personality—and personalities have wishes and goals and desires and loves and hates and that one song they can't get out of their head. A true "strong AI" will be fully conscious, not just algorithmic function bating.
Good luck telling a mildly strong godform to stop tripping on youtube videos and instead solve the global economic stability equation over lunch.
This advantage will lower the bar for strong AI even more.
That's kinda foofy conjecture. Being good at rectangular grid outcomes isn't necessarily a step in any direction towards a hands-off tax evaluating robot.
It feels really really good to talk about how AI will be a hundred billion trillion times smarter than the combined brainpower of all humans that have ever lived, but it feels good in the same way thinking dead people live again after they die feels good—it triggers that warm wishful thinking parietal lobe that removes a bit of reason for the sake of an overarching calmness.
Enthusiasm is great, but tempering with real expectations and less technopriesthood is better.
You can recruit neurons within your own brain, not plug the equivalent of 4 brains into your brain and increase your cognitive abilities.
Now, while many people die and their ideas die with them, there are built in aspects of our brain that are hardwired. People eat animals because they are tasty, people follow the life of Kim Kardashian and waste money buying a rolex and wear fur just because the stupid way our social functions are hardwired in our brain.
In the grand scheme of things, what is the point of humans repeating billion of times the same cycle?: born, grow, learn, achieve some things, have some fun, and die. It is awesome a few times. But it is worth to repeat and repeat that for ever? Not if there is a much better option: The singularity. It has the potential to enhance the human race in formidable ways. Yes,there is the risk that the AI may chose to destroy us. But in my opinion is a bet that we should take. Just try our best to not be destroyed in the way. But we shouldn't leave this opportunity unexplored. It would be the biggest achievement of humanity.
It is NOT the same cycle.
Every life is different.
So what the people learned 500 years ago made sense for them - but they would face a hard time now.
Our knowledge of daily living will be mostly obsolete in 200 (or much less) years, too.
Fresh minds don't have the burden of outdated ideas... quoting Max Planck: "a new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it."
You are assigning value to "us" beyond what might actually be there. What if our only evolutionary value is to give rise to machine intelligence [that will go on to explore the universe] and die off?
We are primitive forms of life after all and are at the point where we should be able to say, with certainty, that machine intelligence will be objectively superior and something that we should feel OBLIGATED to give rise to, regardless of consequences.
> What if our only evolutionary value is to give rise to machine intelligence
There is no prescribed script about what our evolutionary value should be. We will be whatever we ourselves make of us. Unless something unexpected happens -more advanced aliens intervening with our specie for example- Our human instinct is to grow, explore, discover, compete, share as much as we can. AI should be seen as a tool to our goals. Not as an end by itself. There is of course the possibility that we may loose control to the AI. That is not our desired goal, but it could happen. In that case our future will not be our decision. We will be at the mercy of whatever the AI choose for us. That will depend on what kind of AI we built, and how the rampant AI chooses to modify itself. But we will strive to reach our human goals. Because that is the human nature.
Just because you or me see no prescribed script, doesn't mean it's not there. You make a philosophical point here, but my point is more than that.
"We will be whatever we ourselves make of us" sounds meaningless to me. The universe obeys certain physical laws, evolution is directed and follows a specific pattern. We have up to this point been bound by both. Occam's razor says this will continue to be the case.
I think we are already at the crossroads where we can more than speculate about the function of machine intelligence in evolutionary terms, but hopefully sooner rather than later we will have actual _evidence_ that we can look at and use to refine our assumptions.
I do not understand how a business can understand OSS and implement the OSS core-only model
Whenever you see "open core," you should read it as "VCs said we need to do this to keep them happy."
VCs love the idea of how you can give part of something away for free then lock people in to auto-renewing subscription contracts for the whole banana (with fees increasing 7% to 17% every year for ongoing "maintenance"). Many VCs still actively recoil at the thought of giving away everything for free then just hoping the best will happen.
Nginx is a weird example because I'm not sure how well they are doing or who would buy "nginx pro" instead of haproxy+nginx or haproxy+varnish+nginx some other combination of already existing stuff.
MongoDB is an interesting example because they went with the "provide open software, but with really serious, game-stopping flaws, then force people to pay for support because nothing works" route. That's almost literally bait-and-switch (bait-and-support?). But, that hasn't ended up so well for them. From a recent WSJ article: Fidelity has cut its valuation of MongoDB in eight of the nine quarters since Fidelity made its investment in December 2013, valuing the shares 58% below what it paid.
Isn't this what Elasticsearch is doing now? Security is deliberately left out of the offering unless you purchase a very expensive support contract that give you access to Shield? I'm not sure I would call them a winner, its unclear how well they are doing. I think they are mostly running on VC money at the moment. I agree "Open Core" should be regarded with some suspicion.
Do you have a link to the MongoDB WSJ article? They are pretty terrible, even with a support contract bugs have a way of not being resolved or addressed.
That's the holy grail of The Cloud: just write a description of what you want and what you want happens. DWIM programmatic casting.
I think pg originated his "sufficiently smart compiler" startup idea in his pycon talk. You can find it online somewhere. The other take away from his talk was: just lie to customers about it being automated, manually farm out the parallelize-all-the-code tasks to works/interns/turks while saying it's "automatic," then eventually figure out how to automate it yourself later so you don't need pesky humans in the loop.
What's with "the cloud" here? That's the holy grail of any type of programming on any type of computing device at any scale. If that were possible it would be just as useful on a phone or a PC or a personal server.
NGDP level targeting says during economic downturns, the government should fill the gap between the downturn and the previous economic output level (creating jobs, buying things, paying people to do things, etc). Basically, don't let an economic downturn interrupt people's lives—always give them something to do and opportunities to grow.
land value tax comes from the idea nobody should be able to "own" land, you should rent land. When there's a more profitable use for your land than you are current exploiting, you must give the land up. The UK enjoys things like 99 year leases on land instead of in the US where you "buy" land and own it until the heat death of the universe.
negative wage taxes is like basic income if you make the "negative wage limit" really high. The government pays you because you don't make enough (maybe for reasons outside your control, like all jobs you are qualified for are now done by robots).
Singapore has free computerized centralized healthcare that doesn't cost a million dollars a person-year like in the US.
Estonia lets you get something resembling a "mini passport" with no international recognition (perhaps some cross-EU identity recognition, but no residency benefits), but with legal ties to an Estonian "e-residency" so you can verify your identity online electronically (chipped smart cards verified by government records, etc).
> NGDP level targeting says during economic downturns, the government should fill the gap
NO. It says the central bank should fill the gap, and that there's absolutely no point in the government's fiscal policy trying to fill the gap when it can be filled by creating enough money to keep NGDP on a level path.
> land value tax comes from the idea nobody should be able to "own" land, you should rent land. When there's a more profitable use for your land than you are current exploiting, you must give the land up. The UK enjoys things like 99 year leases on land instead of in the US where you "buy" land and own it until the heat death of the universe.
That sounds like the scariest solution to the problem of land ownership. There are plenty of cases where the government decides that somebody must give their land up to expropriate more value from it with Eminient Domain laws. Who gets to decide when land is not extracting enough value? Politicians who are bought out by private corporations controlled by a board of directors, none of whom live anywhere near the land being expropriated? Land should be collectively owned by the people living on it and producing from it.
It would fix a lot of things like e.g. San Francisco. Imagine if all those two story, single family homes were taxed at their land value (40 story condos! condos everywhere!) where 3,000 people could live in the space currently occupied by 2 to 6 people.
Living in a place shouldn't grant you the right to obstruct progress forever just because you got there first. In the same vein, just because you got somewhere first also shouldn't mean you get unlimited profit potential just because... you got there first.
It would be accompanied with democratic process of the people who currently use that land. If the community of land users decided it would not hurt them for whatever progress somebody else proposes, they would democratically decide among themselves whether or not to do that.
Nobody would vote to gentrify and therefore forcibly remove themselves from their homes.
Again, you just attached value to the very loaded term progress. What is progress for one person might not be progress for the people who use that land for their own sustenance, whether that be a house or a farm or an enterprise.
If you own land, you would owe land value tax, regardless of what you have done to the land. If you just hold the land and do nothing you still owe tax. No one forces you to sell the land.
This:
>When there's a more profitable use for your land than you are current exploiting, you must give the land up
is not accurate.
> Land should be collectively owned by the people living on it and producing from it.
From wikipedia on eminent domain: "The property may be taken either for government use or by delegation to third parties, who will devote it to public or civic use or, in some cases, to economic development." The government, using eminent domain, literally forces you to sell the land. That is what the law is.
What part of that isn't true? They can take private land for public or "economic" development.
> Why should this be the case?
Private property is theft. Private property is a tool used to expropriate value from producers (workers) and give it to the property owners (capitalists). If you have a mine, a person or a corporation owned by a small group of people, buys the deed for the mine. They pay workers to extract the resources from the land for a wage. The wage is necessarily less than the value the workers create by mining the resources. That surplus goes into the pockets of the capitalist owners, even though they did no work. The miners are likely paid pennies, live in poor conditions, and now their home land is ruined by the ecological effects of the mining operation.
Resource extraction happens to be the easy one to describe, but the exact same principle holds in all manifestations of private property.
If you disagree, please at least read some Karl Marx first. Criticism of capitalism is well examined, and has been done for a long time.
Land value tax sounds like a proposal to return directly to feudalism.
"Using land the most profitably" (ie. extracting the most tribute) will become de facto ownership for the controlling entity through tribute, while everyone else will be tenants of the few controllers.
I think what the grandparent meant was that if you were not using the land profitably you are going to want to 'sell' the land to someone who can use it more profitably and is therefore willing to pay a high price for it. If you didn't do that and just rented the land you would lose money because of the high land tax.
I think 'selling' here means "giving the other guy the privilege of having to pay lots of taxes instead of you".
I think renting land in any fashion is morally reprehensible. Though I don't fit in with much the neoliberal HN crowd as an anarchist communalist.
Ownership should be restricted to the community of inhabitants of the land. The processes around controlling the land would be voted on democratically, and a federation of community ownerships with local representation would deal with extra-community processes around broader land decision making.
Feudalism is a word that has been applied to such a wide variety of historical situations that it almost has no meaning, like the word "liberal". Please explain what is bad with having to pay rent to the government, given that we already pay taxes, and land value tax would reduce the need to levy other taxes, other than socially-advantageous sin taxes such as carbon taxes.
That's like saying they aren't telling us how to make time travel because the grandfather paradox hasn't been solved.
They aren't withholding some unique secrets of the universe because we have unsolved problems... they are just slightly crazy people who can turn a phrase and pivoted that ability into an endless series of "grants" as to avoid needing to get real jobs contributing to GDP.
The output of their work is amusing, but just because someone runs around with veracity of purpose doesn't mean what they say is part of a ground truth reality.
Read it for enjoyment, but don't read it for belief.
If Tesla employees can address individual cars with no oversight or audit trail or "2+ man rule" in place, that's a huge lapse of professional responsibility.
We need something like Certificate Transparency to log ACL hits for all these "connected, but proprietary" things in our lives.
Do we have any guarantees a rogue tesla employee can't just tell your car to drive off a bridge while you're inside it?
Uber got busted for allowing general access to a "god mode" that let employees tail passengers. Musk may have brought more appropriate practices from PayPal though.
