more Brookshear

4.2

A collection of primitives along with a collection of rules stating how the primitives can be combined to represent more complex ideas constitutes a programming languages. (primatives: well-defined building blocks of algorithms)

4.3

Today, the period between conscious work on a problem and the sudden inspiration is known as an incubation period, and its understanding remains a goal of current research.

notes from Brookshear’s book 3.6 “Network Protocols”

Four layers of in Internet software: application, transport, network, and link

Open System Interconnection (OSI) is based on a seven-level hierarchy as opposed to the four-level system used by the Internet. … it has not been readily implemented, mainly because before it was established the TCP/IP protocol suite had already been developed, implemented, widely publicized, and proven reliable as the protocol system for the Internet.

The TCP/IP protocol suite is a collection of protocols defining the four-level hierarchy used by the Internet. At the transport layer, TCP (“reliable”) and UDP (connectionless) are two versions. At the network layer, it is IP.

般若 bōrě

智慧。佛教用语。通过直觉的洞察所获得的先验的智慧或最高的知识基本词义

http://www.chinese-tools.com/tools/chinese-dictionary/dico_%E8%88%AC%E8%8B%A5.html

Wikipedia buddhism terminology: http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:%E4%BD%9B%E6%95%99%E8%A1%93%E8%AA%9E

少時學語苦難圓　　只道功夫半未全

到老方知非力取　　三分人事七分天

[清]歷史學家趙翼

I’m reading Glenn Brookshear’s book (5th edition). Some notes I took goes here:

Introduction:

“… the level of intelligence displayed by machines is limited by the intelligence that can be conveyed through algorithms.”

“… rather than allowing the dictates of technology to determine machine design and thus the way we represent algorithms, we would like our knowledge of algorithms to be the driving force behind modren machine architecture.”

“… in the early 1900s with the publication of Kurt Godel’s imcompleteness theory. This theorem essetionally states that in any mathematical theory encompassing our traditional arithmetic system, there are statesments that can be neither proved nor disproved. In short, any complete study of our arithmetic system lies beyond the capabilities if algorithmic activities.”

“… some questions that define the science of computing and provide the focus of its study.

• which problems can be solved by algorithmic processes?
• how can the discovery of algorithms be made easier?
• how can the techniques of representating and communicating algorithms be improved?
• how can our knowledge of algorithms and technology be applied to provide better algorithmic machines?
• how can the characteristics of different algorithms be analyzed and compared?

Note that the theme common to all of these questions is the study of algorithms.”

“Abstraction is an important simplification technique with which our society has created a lifestyle that would otherwise be impossible.”

“What is the difference between the presence of intelligence behavior and the presence of intelligecen itself?”

“Likewise, to determine whether governments and companies should be allowed to develop large, integrated databases containing information about its citizens or customers, members of that society must have a basic understanding of the capabilities, limitations, and ramifications of databases technology.”

This book’s latest version is 7th edition.

Today they offer free storage of 5GB. Is this worth my comments? I use streamload mediamax. It is free. It works very well. And, it is 25GB! AOL, I hate to say it, but I just don’t get it.

Comparable services I tried include Yahoo briefcase and Openomy. Their space is not as large as Mediamax and they don’t have other advantage over Mediamax. I still have some stuff in Yahoo briefcase and quite a bunch stuck in Openomy. Openomy is ugly and didn’t work smoothly occasionally when I activaly used it. I don’t know why I chose it. Mediamax has a little problem: sometimes after the files are uploaded, it may take unbelievable long time to show up. It didn’t happen too often, though.

I was interested in Omnidrive and signed up trying to get into beta. They are too slow to launch the service. I simply quit.

I almost forgot I used BOX.net too. Nice interface. I have some stuff saved there. No as large as Mediamax, so I had to switch.

This is today’s news and it doesn’t make any sense to me. Yahoo and Gmail have been giving wonderful free emails all the time. They are side-by-side with other great (and way better than AOL) web services. There are thousands of thousands of people already using them. What is the point of free AOL emails? Who would be interested in getting one if he doesn’t already have one? I’m amazed that AOL is still alive.