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Having heard the fifth cover version of "Spirit in the Sky" earlier and myriads of other "artists" releasing other people's work

It's inevitable. There are only about 50,000 possible four-note melodies in the Western scale.

Since the HGP has just released the complete source code, I think we should use the open-source model of development:

Let the user community build, test, and report bugs. Every couple weeks, developers can release a new test version to thousands of users.

Distribution of the code should not be a problem:
everything.com

Some may disagree, but wikipedia has done me a world of good. Almost every entry is informative, and I even have a wiki quicksearch in Phoenix. If I want to know what, say "Condorcet's Method" is, I type "wiki Condorcet's Method" in Phoenix' address bar, and *POP*, I'm learning.

Wikipedia is also a damned good hypertext resource. Every page is linked to and links to other related pages, some are overviews which include the current element. I've spent a few hours pursueing links. I don't have to fight the interface, or wait for some crappy flash animation to do its work; the whole site gives me little thrills of glee.

Also, it's wiki, so if something isn't right, you can fix it.

Everything2 is also a useful resource. Wikipedia doesn't always have information on what you're looking for, but everything2 almost always does. However, E2 isn't a very reliable source, so you need to take everything with a bigger grain of salt than wiki.

True, but let's look at both sites:

E2: Ramen, Mountain Dew, and h4x0r.

Straight Dope: Ramen, Mountain Dew, and h4x0r.

It seems that while E2 gives the information, Straight Dope elaborates. Both are good for reading when work is supposed to be getting done, though.

True, but let's look at both sites:

E2: Ramen, Mountain Dew, and h4x0r.

Straight Dope: Ramen, Mountain Dew, and h4x0r.

It seems that while E2 gives the information, Straight Dope elaborates. Both are good for reading when work is supposed to be getting done, though.

True, but let's look at both sites:

E2: Ramen, Mountain Dew, and h4x0r.

Straight Dope: Ramen, Mountain Dew, and h4x0r.

It seems that while E2 gives the information, Straight Dope elaborates. Both are good for reading when work is supposed to be getting done, though.

You can't even talk about useless knowledge with mentioning everything2.

Here's where I go when _I_ want to learn.

How Stuff Works - Helped with a project or two.
So You Wanna - Doesn't look like it's been updated recently, a pity too. Great step-guides to doing lots of things, from good interviews to skydiving (some vague, some specific)
Everything2 - Geeks guide to everything and anything (including the kitchen sink)

Here's where I go when _I_ want to learn.

How Stuff Works - Helped with a project or two.
So You Wanna - Doesn't look like it's been updated recently, a pity too. Great step-guides to doing lots of things, from good interviews to skydiving (some vague, some specific)
Everything2 - Geeks guide to everything and anything (including the kitchen sink)

I always thought that relativity + big bang theory = finitie space/mass of the universe.

So did I, but the new data from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe apparently says otherwise.

I have seen it argued that since the universe started as a point at the big bang, it cannot be infinite is size now, as nothing can grow from finite to infinite size. There are two things wrong with this:
Our understanding doesn't go all the way back to the origin. Physics as we know it breaks down before that.
The big bang describes an increase in scale, from ultra-dense to what we see now. Infinite spaces can also increase in scale.

See more here: The universe is finite

The user may not distribute the software in source or object form for commercial purposes under any circumstances.

in the boolean sense "or" means that if either condition is satisfied, then what follows applies. so object code:

Object code is the result of a program taking source code and running it through a compiler or assembler. This creates the object code which can then be linked together in such a way that the computer can understand it. Executables are created in such a way. Both are platform/processor dependend. A Mac could not understand the object code created for Linux, just as DOS could not understand the object code created for an Amiga, unless an emulator was used.


would include executables and thus you would not be allowed to distribute object code under this license.

Am I the only one who connects this to the "Fuck You, Clown" story?

That's actually a great idea for an anti RIAA letter. Lead up to a dramatic climax, then end it with a simple "Fuck You."

("Clown" is not required, since most of us take it for granted that Hilary Rosen is a clown.)

One who administers affairs; one who directs, manages, executes, or dispenses, whether in civil, judicial, political, or ecclesiastical affairs; a manager.

Rich backpackers (second defn.) can now ipod effectively...

Sadly, now that I think about it, I don't know any rich backpackers (at least not wealthy enough to afford this). If there were, this would be the thing to elevate them to new levels of self-alienation.

Posted by Hemos on Monday April 07, @10:52AM
from the try-it-again dept.
chasingporsches writes "It appears that Apple released Final Cut Pro 4, Shake 3, and DVD Studio Pro 2. FCP4 has great new features, such as updated HD support, but unfortunately the usual hefty price tag ($999 full, $399 upgrade). Shake now has unlimited network rendering, and DVD Studio Pro 2 has a new basic/advanced user interface."

is Google. "ethical dilemmas" technology yields some good ones, and some false positives; here's an interesting paper.
The first hit and one of my favorite questions, which I've debated to some length with friends in the past, is to what extent you can observe your workers' use of the Internet. After all, their traffic runs through your servers in a manner akin to a person shouting cell-phone conversations; but should you accept that those 8 hours a day will not all be spent filling TPS reports, or should you employ Draconian tactics to monitor users' porn-site usage?
Another interesting one, less IT-related but also interesting, is the economic issue: if the application of certain expensive technology can save human lives, should it be used, to whom should it be offered, and who should have to pay?
Perhaps one day SETI will present us with another dilemma: If you know a religion to be false, should you tell its followers? Some would say this is already an issue in the modern information-enabled world.

is Google. "ethical dilemmas" technology yields some good ones, and some false positives; here's an interesting paper.
The first hit and one of my favorite questions, which I've debated to some length with friends in the past, is to what extent you can observe your workers' use of the Internet. After all, their traffic runs through your servers in a manner akin to a person shouting cell-phone conversations; but should you accept that those 8 hours a day will not all be spent filling TPS reports, or should you employ Draconian tactics to monitor users' porn-site usage?
Another interesting one, less IT-related but also interesting, is the economic issue: if the application of certain expensive technology can save human lives, should it be used, to whom should it be offered, and who should have to pay?
Perhaps one day SETI will present us with another dilemma: If you know a religion to be false, should you tell its followers? Some would say this is already an issue in the modern information-enabled world.

Back in the early days of everything I found that one of the first nodes written was [La Blue Girl] by CmdrTaco. It has since been deleted. CONCIDENCE? I THINK NOT.

There is a 'masked rom' protection for catridges that makes a hex dump of a ROM not a backup in the legal sense.

You're thinking of Atari v. JS&A Group, which ruled that backup copies are not necessary to protect works stored on mask ROM media. However, it could be argued that a ROM image stored on a hard disk is an "adaptation" rather than a "backup copy", and 17 USC 117 specifically allows the owner of a genuine copy to make adaptations necessary to get the program to run.

If you're still interested, you may want to read my speculation about the holes in the common "emulation is illegal even if you own the cartridge" arguments.

I don't think you're giving your mother enough credit. If she's not afraid of buzzwords, then she has every right to know what she's getting into.

Her only problem was that she thought she understood more than she actually did. IMHO, rather than grumble at her ignorance, which you deem unnecessary, you ought to be pointing her to websites like Wikipedia, Ars Technica and Everything2, so she can drink from the wells of knowledge. That'll let her decide whether she wants to be "in the know," or whether she wants something that "just works."

As incentive, think about this: Wouldn't you rather she be able to fix her own computer? If she's interested in learning, she will.

It's the closest I could find...

Well, I don't know how to solve the problem of "hundred". But the digits can have names (and not just the letter names, which have the problem that they're hard to tell apart and A sounds like 8).

On Everything2, there's the node Names for digits higher than 9. The names for the digits - I have no idea who created them - are "dek" for A, "el" for B, "zen" for C, "tris" for D, "cat" for E, and "kink" for F.

please make me say curse words

I boycott Dr. Seuss Enterprises because it submitted an amicus brief supporting the Bono Act. A K5 user once pretended to channel Dr. Seuss:

graal:
"Some are glad,
Some are sad,
And some are very, very bad.
Why are they sad, and glad and bad?"

pin0cchio:
"I'll tell you why they are so sad:
The Congress passed a law that's bad.
The public domain has been sacked
by what they called the 'Bono Act'.
And this made Eric Eldred shout:
'Let's get the courts to throw it out!'
But in their ruling, the Supremes
Told Larry Lessig, 'In your dreams.'
The public seemed to've lost the fight
For limits on the copyright.
But all is not lost, to be sure,
And you can help put reason back:
Just ask your rep and senator
To pass The Eric Eldred Act."

Previous story: Can You Trust Microsoft On Security?

I KNEW they had their finger in evey pie! (and some things not even pie related).

At least its not April Trolls day...or does that happen everyday?

well, it's not entirely an impossible language...
take Java Language Specification's definition of whitespace, which includes space, tab, form feed, and line terminator. There are languages that require very few characters, such as brainfuck. There are irritating languages like that one. In fact, two characters is enough to form a language.

However, according to Mr. Bunny's Big Cup o' Java(TM) , whitespace is the computer's way of telling you that you haven't done any work.

Umm...you use DIRECTIONAL ANTENNE. From point A, you line up with the strongest signal direction. From point B you do the same. Where the lines formed from point A and B intersect is C--your target. If the antenne were NOT directional, then yes...you'd have a couple of circles.

Sigh...I'm done now.

For further information, check out this as a starting point.

When computers were first being made, they were designed by people who had a background in mechanical and electrical engineering, simply just so they could get the darn things built.

Later on, when computers became versatile enough to execute arbitrary code, do you think they hired mechanical or electrical engineers then? No, they hired mathemeticians. A computer program, when you look at it in its basic form, is just an extremely long, complicated, and interactive algorithm. While electrical and mechanical engineers need to know a lot of math, a pure mathemetician is obviously the best person for the job.

I do admit that in modern times this situation has changed. With some software projects involving hundreds of people and taking years to complete, it's obvious that more than just an mathemetician is needed. Specifications, design plans, bug tracking, all of that. However, most amount of the "software engineers" out there are just a new and different type of mathemetician. Those who really do spend their time creating specifications and design plans are not really "software engineers"; a better way to say it would probably be "software architect".

Consider the design of a building; an architect would decide how it would look like on the outside, the general floor plan for inside the building, the landscape around the building, etc. etc., and while they at least have to pay attention to things like making sure the building they designed can stand up for itself, they don't have to verify it either. Then, an actual engineer or team of engineers get together, and based on the properties of well known and reliable building materials, they make certain that the building will stand. Then at last, the construction crew comes along and builds it.

The problem with software is that it's not done in the same order. First the "architect" decides how the program should function, and creates a list of features wanted. Then, the "construction crew" creates all the pieces of code. Then at last, they stick all the pieces together, and only then do the "engineers" try and calculate it all out to make sure it works right. Eventually they get something that seems like it won't fall in on itself, and they tell the customer that it's done. The problem is that instead of using known and verifiable building materials like an engineer working on a building, the materials used to create have usually just been created on the spot, and cannot always be fully verified and tested, as opposed to building materials such as steel beams, which can be tested and verified to support a weight of X metric tons or whatever.

Until such a time exists where software can and is tested to such an extreme length that it can be considered to have the reliability of a steel beam, a software "engineer" by my definition is just someone who certifies software as ready for release because they can't find any more bugs... not because they can prove that there aren't any. In fact, it has been mathematically proven that it is impossible to prove that all programs can be proven to work. I don't want to go into it now but it has to do with Godel's Theorem and the improvability of certain systems of axioms.

Disclaimer: I am a computer science student at a state university. I have not worked at a professional software development firm and much of what is written above was extrapolated from stories and hearsay from those who have worked professionally. And while the university I attend has chosen to place computer science in the college of engineering, I personally do recognize the fact that I am studying what is essentially a very specialized form of mathematics and algorithm creation. Some schools I considered attending did not have a college of engineering but had a computer science program in their math department. In addition, I h

A common interpretation is that the chain of AIs would become more intelligent without bound, leading to a verticality ... I've become more and more convinced that it is certain to happen.

And I think I have a good argument why it won't ever be vertical. See here. As always, I'd be interested to hear if you think I'm wrong.

http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=112925 9

Here's a little rant about upgrading computers. Just remember that while most geeks plan an upgrade or two, upgradability is a sham in PC hardware.

OT: I thought about it before adding it to my .sig. Before adopting it, I tried to figure out its exact writing, since I only know its Brazilian version. I stumbled across this page at E2. I'm more inclined to think like the ones who got C! in their entries, but I didn't realize this quote could be so controversial and ambiguous. Thank you for making me notice it. Probably I should now search for a better one. :)

OT: I thought about it before adding it to my .sig. Before adopting it, I tried to figure out its exact writing, since I only know its Brazilian version. I stumbled across this page at E2. I'm more inclined to think like the ones who got C! in their entries, but I didn't realize this quote could be so controversial and ambiguous. Thank you for making me notice it. Probably I should now search for a better one. :)

Well, quite simple. Microsoft will actually package Nexus (Drug also know as 2C-B) with the product.

at least in terms of PR.
Microsoft: "Um, we don't want to fix this. But here's the kernel source, so why don't you fix it for us?"
Beady-eyed kernel hacker: "OK!"
It's not such a silly idea with a practically end-of-life'd product; bugs and exploits would get found and fixed and since Microsoft doesn't seem to want to support certain OS changes, we'd do it for them. And it would be a great PR boost. "Microsoft supports freedom to innovate!". Hm.

the UN has never passed a binding, enforceable resolution against Israel.

Definetely Magnolia.

For a some good reviews of the movie go to Everything2

As one of the writers "Wonko" states:

A long, sweeping masterpiece of a movie that lures you in with an unconventional prologue and then squeezes you and squeezes you, like a wet sponge, until finally plunging you back into the water at the end.

Check out Everything2.com. Not only is it just a cool site, they have several things going on with this (see here
and here.)

Check out Everything2.com. Not only is it just a cool site, they have several things going on with this (see here
and here.)

Check out Everything2.com. Not only is it just a cool site, they have several things going on with this (see here
and here.)

Does it strike anyone else as ironic that Adobe, which began as a Macintosh-dominant company (the versions of PhotoShop always came out for the Mac first), is now becoming Windows-dominant?

No. In fact, it strikes me that there is nothing ironic about your observation at all.

Sorry for being such a pedant; I don't know why this bothered me enough to comment. I must be feeling exceptionally perverse today.

HAND.

You've "easily" proven things by defining them as something. An irrational number is a number with no known, infinite, repeatable sequence? You've *defined* it that way, that doesn't mean you've ever *proven* a number irrational.

Proof that the square root of 2 is irrational: http://everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=928307

Proof that e is irrational: http://everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=930313

Better examples are obviously out there, but I just searched for 'irrational' on E2... You're very ignorant.

You've "easily" proven things by defining them as something. An irrational number is a number with no known, infinite, repeatable sequence? You've *defined* it that way, that doesn't mean you've ever *proven* a number irrational.

Proof that the square root of 2 is irrational: http://everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=928307

Proof that e is irrational: http://everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=930313

Better examples are obviously out there, but I just searched for 'irrational' on E2... You're very ignorant.

The E2 Great Grand Book Lotto is just getting underway. Okay, it's a temporary thing, it's on a pretty small scale and the organiser clearly states that the administration is horrendous, but the idea is great.

By placing it in an image along with some obfuscation designed to confuse OCR, automated response systems would be extremely difficult to write.

Correct; that's the entire point of The CAPTCHA Project, which has previously been discussed on Slashdot. But the current CAPTCHA systems, which rely on human recognition of features of an image, are inaccessible to blind people and to others who can't view images and are thus NOT Section 508 compliant.

Yes. Programmers all over are trying to prove various systems Tetris complete.

However, they can't use the name "Tetris".

Yes. Programmers all over are trying to prove various systems Tetris complete.

However, they can't use the name "Tetris".

Yes, that is interesting indeed.

I think in general there may be interesting research to be done in the area of mapping/visualization of complex data: for instance this project of mapping the internet.

Does this really help in general? Are there many cases where such visual maps would help understanding of complex data?
Think for example, it may be interesting to produce such a map of everything2, which is a sort of hyperlinked online encyclopedia, to see where the clustering is.

In astrophysics, 3D maps of the universe have been produced for some time, and the human-eye understanding of large-scale structure was at first more direct than statistical analysis--for instance, people would see the famous filaments, but stats wouldn't.

A post above quoted the possible use in spotting "usefulness" of code contributions, by looking at their interdependencies for example.

Read... Write. Scram.

I've played MUDs and I've talked on BBSes and I've collaborated on all sorts of projects with AIM and cellphones (anyone catch the reference to "smart mobs" in the linked BBC article?). But I can't see how this could be fun, since the individual's efforts are always subjugated to solving someone else's computer-aided puzzle. The BBC article compares this online fake problem-solving effort to EverCrack, perhaps unfairly:

Already multiplayer games such as EverQuest struggle to cope with the groups that play and the creative communal tactics used to tackle each challenge.

But really, this isn't special. It's just people seeking an outlet for their otherwise desperate life-empty frustrations; they'd be far better off contributing talent somewhere worthwhile rather than playing with someone else's hacked-together Flash animation. It's nothing to write home about--just Internet puzzles that take away your individual exploration and innovation and replace it with someone else's idea of a good time.

No offense, of course, intended to anyone who does in fact derive a good time from this kind of thing; but please remember if you're that desperate to express your smartness, there are much more productive and creative things you could be doing. Read... Write. Scram.

I've played MUDs and I've talked on BBSes and I've collaborated on all sorts of projects with AIM and cellphones (anyone catch the reference to "smart mobs" in the linked BBC article?). But I can't see how this could be fun, since the individual's efforts are always subjugated to solving someone else's computer-aided puzzle. The BBC article compares this online fake problem-solving effort to EverCrack, perhaps unfairly:

Already multiplayer games such as EverQuest struggle to cope with the groups that play and the creative communal tactics used to tackle each challenge.

But really, this isn't special. It's just people seeking an outlet for their otherwise desperate life-empty frustrations; they'd be far better off contributing talent somewhere worthwhile rather than playing with someone else's hacked-together Flash animation. It's nothing to write home about--just Internet puzzles that take away your individual exploration and innovation and replace it with someone else's idea of a good time.

No offense, of course, intended to anyone who does in fact derive a good time from this kind of thing; but please remember if you're that desperate to express your smartness, there are much more productive and creative things you could be doing. Read... Write. Scram.