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The University Relations Department has put out an informative FAQ (scroll half-way down) which further explains the nature of the break-in and the current status of the investigation.

The real impact might not just be from the information accessed. George Mason University has numerous agreements with many contractors in government and defense related fields. As a relatively new school, it has worked to build up prestige and relationships in the area. Many of those enrolled in IT&E programs are actively sought after by the industry and are placed in jobs before they even graduate. Since I am a student in Mason's Information Security program,this is somewhat of a concern, as this incident could potentially effect their recruiting efforts for some time to come.

Yeah, that's a good point -- I forgot about their Master's program in Information Security, their Information Security Institute, and their Lab for Information Security Technology.

It's always amazed me how little university administrators make use of the expertise of their faculty, academic staff, and (esepcially graduate) students.

Yeah, that's a good point -- I forgot about their Master's program in Information Security, their Information Security Institute, and their Lab for Information Security Technology.

It's always amazed me how little university administrators make use of the expertise of their faculty, academic staff, and (esepcially graduate) students.

Yeah, that's a good point -- I forgot about their Master's program in Information Security, their Information Security Institute, and their Lab for Information Security Technology.

It's always amazed me how little university administrators make use of the expertise of their faculty, academic staff, and (esepcially graduate) students.

32,000 staff and student ID records, including photographs and SSN's have been exposed to {h|cr}ackers, possibly for as long as two months. GMU is home to The Center for Secure Information Systems. In other news, the cobbler's children are going barefoot...

The bottom line is - I salute Sun open sourcing Solaris, but they still need to work on improving the attitude towards other open source OS's, particularly Linux and FreeBSD. The strategy of insisting that Solaris is just better, isn't going to get Sun very far, simply because it isn't true in many respects.

What is funny about reading the article linked to by /. and the comments here is that it just made me remember what George Mason is asking of their grad students. They set up these grad students with an email account but they give them instructions to use it at home by only using a version of Netscape - precisely between versions 4 and 7 to exclude http://registrar.gmu.edu/ check it out.

i ended up going to http://www.gmu.edu/ which, when i applied, wasn't exactly well known for its cs program. on the other hand, it's /the/ up and coming university in the greater area. i'm just about to finish my m.s. c.s., so i've been applying for my first "real world" job. so far i've had a lot better response than friends who finished their undergrad degrees at far more prestigious universities. the differences:

* i had two years experience with a local firm. i started off as an intern and worked my ass off. i was recognized for my effort (including being recognized as most valuable employee) and the internship quickly turned into a part time associate software engineer position.

* i (almost) have a master's, my friends don't.

* my undergrad degree is far broader than the degree requirements suggest: i was one advanced calc sequence short of finishing a double major in applied math. as it was, i finished with minors in data analysis and math. the people i've interviewed with and spoken to at career fairs have consistently commented on the math minor. there seems to be a shortage of people who can do cs and math well. my friends who didn't develop this kind of latitude are now mostly webmonkeys or low level grunts.

* i've been very involved. i'm a member of the acm and participated in several icpc regionals (placing in the top 11 the last two years i competed). i was involved with the robotics club until ta-ing sucked away all my time and will to live.

* i've worked for the department as a t.a. (at the grad and undergrad levels) and as an r.a. if you can find a professor doing work on something you find interesting, ask and see if they'd like help. almost all the interviewers i've had were far more interested in the research stuff i did, even though my internship experience was far more relevant to what they were recruiting for. none of my friends had this kind of experience.

i'm not quite sure how these individual factors are affecting my prospects, but overall it seems that i'm better off than my friends with the fancy degrees (and equally fancy loans) from fancy universities are doing. i'm getting my foot in doors that my friends can't. now, whether or not i'll be able to step through the door is another question (haven't landed a job yet), so caveat lector and all that jazz.

The dragon in the Saint George legend is described as and 'poisonous', not fire-breathing. (the Legenda Aurea is where it was written down in the 13th century). The original latin describes it as draco pestifer (= "destructive snake").

The 11th century Beowulf story mentions dragons and fire, but the dragon isn't breathing it: there's a stream of fire from the burial mound the dragon defends, and the dragon is apparently enveloped in flame.

I'm not sure what you mean by the Revelation of St Peter - theres an Apocalypse of Peter (which doesnt mention a dragon) and the Revelation of St John? In that, the dragon and the beast are separate things, and the dragon breathes a river, not fire (chapter 12). There's horses that breathe fire though (9:17). In any case in its original greek 'drakon' meant snake.

BTW I don't really know all this stuff - when I read your reply I vaguely remembered that Beowulf's dragon was fire-breathing and George's wasn't - I was just curious enough to check.

-Baz

Well, aaaaactually, homo sapiens has lived this long because of its generalization (in things they could control like choice of habitats, nutrition, etc.) not because of specialization. That's how lots of species die off. Bring on an ice age and *poof*.

"From a scientific standpoint, Homo sapiens certainly is among the most generalized species on Earth." http://www.fact-index.com/h/hu/human.html

"we are at this point one single, highly mobile and globally distributed species. We inhabit every single corner of the earth and every single kind of habitat" http://rwor.org/a/v24/1181-1190/1183/evolution.htm

The closer primates get to us in the evolutionary chain the more generalized they become. http://mason.gmu.edu/~jlawrey/biol471/humannotes.h tml

SOOOOOOOO, my point is that even if a person doesnt LOVE a certain subject (like computers, cars, construction, etc.) it would do him good to at least know more than just the basics *especially* when at this point in time information about anything can be so easily found.

There is no excuse. I'm not expecting everybody to be an expert or even average. It's just that some things are plain common sense.

For example, compare this to downloading sypware/malware. If a stranger gives me a bag and tells me this is a great fuel optimizer for my car, I have two choices: 1) I could put it in and suddenly realize my car doesnt work like it used to, or 2) I could stop and look at the bag and realize that it's labeled "SUGAR".

See above. It is often debatable whether or not unique features (in this case size) represent a continum or a distinct species. It is not an exact science, and we may never know for sure. However, there is no other example of an adult human being so small.

Bullshit. Tom Thumb was undeniably human and only grew to approx 40 inches, which is almost exactly the height they are talking about. It's not unthinkable that a general predisposition coupled with inbreeding could have produced a family of little people this size.

If you say that PT Barnum exagerated, look up the world record for height. You'll find the people fighting for the title are comfortably under a meter. According to Guiness, the world record is a 36 year old person who stood a scant 57 cm.

We can only hope that Intelligence Amplification (IA/AI), mind 'uploading' off of fragile bioware, space exploration, and other tech arrives *before* some selfish Joe Schmoe primate tribe is too easily able to take out humanity in one bang/whimper.

A good read on this idea: The Great Filter

--

So others can have fun slashdotting other technologies, here are some websites. There are probably others, but this should keep those who do really want to move away from TCP happy.

• Actual sourcecode to transmit binaries by multicast
  
• IETF Reliable Multicast Transport - Charter + RFCs
  
• Introduction to Multicasting (a little old, doesn't cover things like IGMPv3)
  
• Lightweight Reliable Multicast Protocol
  
• Microsoft's Reliable Multicast
  
• SUN's Reliable Multicast system
  
• Navy Research Laboratory implementation
  
• Scalable Reliable Multicast
  
• Cooperative Reliable Multicast
  
• Reliable Multicast for Wireless environments
  
• Selectively Reliable Multicast
  

You might like this, if you haven't read it already.

"Wage slavery" is marxist crap. For something relating to this, see this set of notes.

A strong respect for property rights is the only thing that makes living standards rise. That is what allows people to save up capital, causing cime-preferences to be lowered, and eventually time-preference schedules -- this leads to the process of civilization. But when you start engaging in systematic thievery (taxes, inflation, wealth-redistribution), this systematically lowers time-preferences, causing de-civilization.

You understanding of the USSR is also flawed. It is not just that the USSR wasn't socialism -- it is that socialism, as defined and understood by Marx, Engels, and the other socialists of the time, is impossible. The USSR's worst disasters, however, occured when they tried to implement socialism as fully as possible (by eliminating money). The socialist system is impossible because of the calculation and information problem. (Hence, to say it is "impractical" because of the "incentive problem", also a problem, is not correct). For another analysis of the problems of socialism (in this case, "anarchist" socialism), see The Anarcho-Statists of Spain.

Walter Williams said it best:

[R]eaching into one's own pocket to assist his fellow man is noble and worthy of praise. Reaching into another person's pocket to assist one's fellow man is despicable and worthy of condemnation.

For the Christians among us, socialism and the welfare state must be seen as sinful. When God gave Moses the commandment "Thou shalt not steal", I'm sure He didn't mean thou shalt not steal unless there's a majority vote. And, I'm sure that if you asked God if it's okay just being a recipient of stolen property, He would deem that a sin as well.

Invent a "problem", then offer a solution.

The history is filled with these types of marketing schemes. In the 1930s there was a product called Listerine, made to treat throat infections. A guy called Gerald Lambert made a marketing scheme, "inventing" a problem ("bad breath") and offered the solution (his product), the birth of mouthwash products.
Ref: http://chnm.gmu.edu/features/sidelights/whoinvente dbo.html

...if you'd like to see a more advanced simulator which has an ant demo, see MASON. A nice paper on it was presented at AAMAS this year.

That's Interdisciplinary Center for Economic Science at George Mason University. The Founder, Vernon Smith, won the 2002 Bank of Sweden "Nobel" prize in Economics for his work in experimental economics, which is now a very vibrant branch of modern economics. I've heard that it's still hard to get published if your experiment doesn't confirm existing "established theory", however.

"Here in Australia, if you walk into a public hospital needing treatment, you will not be turned away. If you walk into a private hospital they will tell you to pay up or fuck off."

That's probably because you _have_ socialized medicine. In countries like ours, I am not aware of hospitals that will turn you down completely because of lack of funds. In fact, no Catholic hospital (which is most of them) will refuse treatment because of lack of funds.

"Where's the cost to freedom?"

If you are to guarantee health care, that means that you have to guarantee that the service of health care be available. What if there aren't enough doctors? Do you then compel certain individuals to become doctors who would otherwise choose another career? What if someone thinks that the state's concept of treatment is complete bunk? Do they get treated what they perceive is the "right" way or do they get the same treatment as everyone else? I can tell you for a fact that my son would be dead today if hospitals administered their "standard care" to him. However, since hospitals here are private, they are more free.

In addition, there are many aspects to medicine that are morally questionable - abortion, for instance. In socialized medicine (correct me if I am wrong), the doctors have to follow the morality of the state, and cannot choose themselves if they believe an operation is immoral (as America is becoming more socialized, this is happening increasingly here, too).

Also, there is the general concept that taking money away from one person to serve the purposes of another is stealing, even if the purposes are good. For a good overview of that concept, you should read these three columns by Walter Williams and Neil Boortz's book (by the way, Neil Boortz used to be a liberal/socialist).

"Here in Australia, if you walk into a public hospital needing treatment, you will not be turned away. If you walk into a private hospital they will tell you to pay up or fuck off."

That's probably because you _have_ socialized medicine. In countries like ours, I am not aware of hospitals that will turn you down completely because of lack of funds. In fact, no Catholic hospital (which is most of them) will refuse treatment because of lack of funds.

"Where's the cost to freedom?"

If you are to guarantee health care, that means that you have to guarantee that the service of health care be available. What if there aren't enough doctors? Do you then compel certain individuals to become doctors who would otherwise choose another career? What if someone thinks that the state's concept of treatment is complete bunk? Do they get treated what they perceive is the "right" way or do they get the same treatment as everyone else? I can tell you for a fact that my son would be dead today if hospitals administered their "standard care" to him. However, since hospitals here are private, they are more free.

In addition, there are many aspects to medicine that are morally questionable - abortion, for instance. In socialized medicine (correct me if I am wrong), the doctors have to follow the morality of the state, and cannot choose themselves if they believe an operation is immoral (as America is becoming more socialized, this is happening increasingly here, too).

Also, there is the general concept that taking money away from one person to serve the purposes of another is stealing, even if the purposes are good. For a good overview of that concept, you should read these three columns by Walter Williams and Neil Boortz's book (by the way, Neil Boortz used to be a liberal/socialist).

"Here in Australia, if you walk into a public hospital needing treatment, you will not be turned away. If you walk into a private hospital they will tell you to pay up or fuck off."

That's probably because you _have_ socialized medicine. In countries like ours, I am not aware of hospitals that will turn you down completely because of lack of funds. In fact, no Catholic hospital (which is most of them) will refuse treatment because of lack of funds.

"Where's the cost to freedom?"

If you are to guarantee health care, that means that you have to guarantee that the service of health care be available. What if there aren't enough doctors? Do you then compel certain individuals to become doctors who would otherwise choose another career? What if someone thinks that the state's concept of treatment is complete bunk? Do they get treated what they perceive is the "right" way or do they get the same treatment as everyone else? I can tell you for a fact that my son would be dead today if hospitals administered their "standard care" to him. However, since hospitals here are private, they are more free.

In addition, there are many aspects to medicine that are morally questionable - abortion, for instance. In socialized medicine (correct me if I am wrong), the doctors have to follow the morality of the state, and cannot choose themselves if they believe an operation is immoral (as America is becoming more socialized, this is happening increasingly here, too).

Also, there is the general concept that taking money away from one person to serve the purposes of another is stealing, even if the purposes are good. For a good overview of that concept, you should read these three columns by Walter Williams and Neil Boortz's book (by the way, Neil Boortz used to be a liberal/socialist).

And before you say "if it saves one life or catches one criminal" we live in a culture of tradeoffs. We don't have speedlimits of 5 mph, even though that would dramatically cut down on car accident deaths.

Ah; I see I am not the only slashdotter who regularly reads Walter Williams.

I used to dabble too. Here's a real and the fake photo I did for a group of circus freaks.

I used to dabble too. Here's a real and the fake photo I did for a group of circus freaks.

No, we haven't quite reached the tipping point yet.

Even though we are now on the steepening knee of the billions-of-years-old exponential curve to Singularity, almost nobody(*) is aware of just how damn fast the rate of change will be accelerating to get us there (in about 25 years). As the pace of progress continually speeds up over the next few decades, though, the Singularity meme will spread as quickly as our inability to understand it (and a rash of crappy Singularity movies will probably be made :)

When your average Joe is forced to abandon his cozy inuitively linear view of the rate of change, and begins shitting his pants, we'll be very close.

(*) Except for a few "whacko" Singularitarians, transhumanists, etc. You could probably fit everyone who's are of the Singularity today -- and takes it dead seriously -- in one football stadium.

--

Clint Kelly, of SAIC, gave a talk at The Krasnow Institutde recently in which he summarized their entry's results. (SAIC was one of CMU's corporate partners.) The gimbal stablized range finder and the stereo-vision system were unavailable for the Challenge due to an "overly-exuberant student" crashing their vehicle by speeding several days prior to contest. This was likely the major cause of their loss.

Clint also mentioned that there were a large number of power lines along the course that could have interfered with the onboard GPS. The robot depended very strongly on GPS. They had hand coded many new way points between the DARPA supplied way points to reduce dependency on sensor s. (A tack they deemed necessary due to aforemention damage.) Also, the rocky terrain may have unduly interfered with GPS signals.

The Red Team's bot had been successfully trialed on similar terrain -- some of the trials were significantly similar to the Challenge's course.

Hopefully next year the Red Team will keep those "exuberant students" away, and they can get a fully functional machine to the starting line.

Current economic conditions rule out the possibility of past, present, or future time machines. The interest rate would always be zero if time travel were possible, because of the arbitrage opportunities that time travel would permit. Positive rates of interest are positive proof that time travel, unlike space flight, is pure fantasy.

Each new tech advance is more powerful and more accessible than the last, but the minds that wield it are relatively stagnant and still saddled with millions of years of selfish evolutionary baggage which we won't be able to fix for quite a while yet.

Humankind is within ~30 years of reaching the vingean Singularity, and the only question is the odds on making it without sabotaging ourselves first. IMO, the odds are very low, but unlike Bill Joy, I don't think there's any point in attempting to STOP or even slow this progress -- all we can do is try to safely guide the tech and hope for the best.

--

There is this growing field called experimental economics. I'm not intimate with it, but it basically involves game theory and economic analysis. On some college campuses you can find economics labs. Students can be paid to participate in computer simulations with the tests usually involving making real money. It's the same concept as SL applied for the purposes of study - concoct a virtual world and let humans play. Usually the world is extremely limited, but as soon as some economist picks this up it might fly very well in the field.

This guy, Dr. Vernon Smith, is as I understand the father of experimental economics (and a nobel laureate).

I have seen the Free software movement to be, at least in part, a backlash against the increasing oppression of poor protections of the public domain.

I don't see it that way, at least not primarily. I think as a whole it is the realization of an economic reality: that the proprietary software model cannot compete with any software that might be released without proprietary restrictions, and that noone can stop software from being released free of these restrictions, so there is far more sense in helping oneself by using (and contributing, if applicable) to Free software than using or producing closed.

I have concerns about the free software ferver waning should the legal intellectual monopolies ease their grip

I think you are seeing Free software more from as an ideological viewpoint than as a practical necessity. I encourage you to spend a little while looking at the Open Source branding effort for Free software for awhile, which emphasizes the practical benefits rather than the idealistic and ethical motivations. The "ferver" will not fade, because the vast majority of it is based on the pragmatic fact that the Open Source or Free model meets the needs of people and businesses better than the other. This won't change no matter how restrictive the intellectual monopolies are with their software; on the contrary, if they open up, all they are doing is increasing the amount of Free software in the world and contributing to the movement. And if they loosen up without fully opening things, they will still be outcompeted by the collaborative Free software model.

gain enough legal strength with such things as software patents to marginalize the movement.

Patents are still to be feared.

I think that if all protections were removed, these same influences would exert their power in less controlled ways.

What protections? All we have now is their "protection" of their alleged "intellectual property." If that were removed, what would happen would be they would discover even sooner that they cannot compete long term with Free software. As near as I can tell, there aren't any legal protections that are protecting "us" against "them."

I have not seen enough legal pushback to open up the intellectual monopolies and shorten the time periods. I fear that the greater power to make those decisions lies with those receiving the money and that the populace won't be moved enough to stand against it. It is a matter of incentive. The populace with little understanding of it's loss gets outweighed by the greed incentive of a selfish individual(s) to lobby the law. I think that laws have been placed that will never be taken back.

This is why I take a minarchist libertarian point of view. If the government is restrained in its very constitution from having these kinds of powers, then noone can lobby the government to take these actions. Government should exist only to protect us from outside threats, protect our rights from violation by fellow citizens, and enforce civil contracts. If government's power to grant special privileges, monopolies, etc. were completely abolished, there would be no point in lobbying government. Everyone would finally have, at last, the exact same rights as everybody else. The problem is too many people want to receive new "rights" at the expense of everyone else.

I have seen the Free software movement to be, at least in part, a backlash against the increasing oppression of poor protections of the public domain.

I don't see it that way, at least not primarily. I think as a whole it is the realization of an economic reality: that the proprietary software model cannot compete with any software that might be released without proprietary restrictions, and that noone can stop software from being released free of these restrictions, so there is far more sense in helping oneself by using (and contributing, if applicable) to Free software than using or producing closed.

I have concerns about the free software ferver waning should the legal intellectual monopolies ease their grip

I think you are seeing Free software more from as an ideological viewpoint than as a practical necessity. I encourage you to spend a little while looking at the Open Source branding effort for Free software for awhile, which emphasizes the practical benefits rather than the idealistic and ethical motivations. The "ferver" will not fade, because the vast majority of it is based on the pragmatic fact that the Open Source or Free model meets the needs of people and businesses better than the other. This won't change no matter how restrictive the intellectual monopolies are with their software; on the contrary, if they open up, all they are doing is increasing the amount of Free software in the world and contributing to the movement. And if they loosen up without fully opening things, they will still be outcompeted by the collaborative Free software model.

gain enough legal strength with such things as software patents to marginalize the movement.

Patents are still to be feared.

I think that if all protections were removed, these same influences would exert their power in less controlled ways.

What protections? All we have now is their "protection" of their alleged "intellectual property." If that were removed, what would happen would be they would discover even sooner that they cannot compete long term with Free software. As near as I can tell, there aren't any legal protections that are protecting "us" against "them."

I have not seen enough legal pushback to open up the intellectual monopolies and shorten the time periods. I fear that the greater power to make those decisions lies with those receiving the money and that the populace won't be moved enough to stand against it. It is a matter of incentive. The populace with little understanding of it's loss gets outweighed by the greed incentive of a selfish individual(s) to lobby the law. I think that laws have been placed that will never be taken back.

This is why I take a minarchist libertarian point of view. If the government is restrained in its very constitution from having these kinds of powers, then noone can lobby the government to take these actions. Government should exist only to protect us from outside threats, protect our rights from violation by fellow citizens, and enforce civil contracts. If government's power to grant special privileges, monopolies, etc. were completely abolished, there would be no point in lobbying government. Everyone would finally have, at last, the exact same rights as everybody else. The problem is too many people want to receive new "rights" at the expense of everyone else.

I have seen the Free software movement to be, at least in part, a backlash against the increasing oppression of poor protections of the public domain.

I don't see it that way, at least not primarily. I think as a whole it is the realization of an economic reality: that the proprietary software model cannot compete with any software that might be released without proprietary restrictions, and that noone can stop software from being released free of these restrictions, so there is far more sense in helping oneself by using (and contributing, if applicable) to Free software than using or producing closed.

I have concerns about the free software ferver waning should the legal intellectual monopolies ease their grip

I think you are seeing Free software more from as an ideological viewpoint than as a practical necessity. I encourage you to spend a little while looking at the Open Source branding effort for Free software for awhile, which emphasizes the practical benefits rather than the idealistic and ethical motivations. The "ferver" will not fade, because the vast majority of it is based on the pragmatic fact that the Open Source or Free model meets the needs of people and businesses better than the other. This won't change no matter how restrictive the intellectual monopolies are with their software; on the contrary, if they open up, all they are doing is increasing the amount of Free software in the world and contributing to the movement. And if they loosen up without fully opening things, they will still be outcompeted by the collaborative Free software model.

gain enough legal strength with such things as software patents to marginalize the movement.

Patents are still to be feared.

I think that if all protections were removed, these same influences would exert their power in less controlled ways.

What protections? All we have now is their "protection" of their alleged "intellectual property." If that were removed, what would happen would be they would discover even sooner that they cannot compete long term with Free software. As near as I can tell, there aren't any legal protections that are protecting "us" against "them."

I have not seen enough legal pushback to open up the intellectual monopolies and shorten the time periods. I fear that the greater power to make those decisions lies with those receiving the money and that the populace won't be moved enough to stand against it. It is a matter of incentive. The populace with little understanding of it's loss gets outweighed by the greed incentive of a selfish individual(s) to lobby the law. I think that laws have been placed that will never be taken back.

This is why I take a minarchist libertarian point of view. If the government is restrained in its very constitution from having these kinds of powers, then noone can lobby the government to take these actions. Government should exist only to protect us from outside threats, protect our rights from violation by fellow citizens, and enforce civil contracts. If government's power to grant special privileges, monopolies, etc. were completely abolished, there would be no point in lobbying government. Everyone would finally have, at last, the exact same rights as everybody else. The problem is too many people want to receive new "rights" at the expense of everyone else.

Actually your link is wrong... you missed the final "l" in "html" :)

Clickable.

Karma whoring at it's best.

I call upon the self-proclaimed conservatives who never tire of claiming they're against "big government". Stop for a minute punctuating every sentence with "terrorism," and "support the troops; we're at war!" like some sort of right-wing Speak and Spell. Remember this on election day: Bush believes the PATRIOT Act should be renewed and celebrated [msn.com]. There's your big government, pal.

First off, not all us conservatives are against big government (see:the ones in power). Us classical liberals however are very much conservative, but have no choice other than to live with the fact the the government is much larger than it should be. I would like to know how you align yourself politically if you are for a smaller government?

Reasoning that the universe should be FILLED with intelligent life by now, Fermi simply asked, "So where are they?"

I assume that the vast majority of intelligent civilizations don't make it past The Great Filter. It's the rare race that survives the dangerous mismatch between their primitive brains and their exponentially advancing technology.

If there are any who have made it past Singularity, then their existence must surely be so far advanced as to be unrecognizable; like we are to ants (no *squish* jokes).

This IMO. My sig isn't a proof or anything.

--

For the last national election, 2002 Voting Age Population Study using public data (derived from Census data, but not done by the US census dept)

2000 US census is 281 million people, Voting-Elligible population estimate of 195 million, puts it at ~ 70%. From total votes, the turnout was 56% of VEP (in a highly contested election with highest turnout in recent years), so the vote represented 39% of the US population.

Which is about right, when you think of it, records show only 40% of the US population supported independence from britain in 1776 (10% against and 50% neutral). But that's how it is in republics; freedom to vote also means freedom to withold your vote... would you rather be fined for not voting like you can in europe?

However...

As far back as 1790 the "exclusive right to profit" was absolutely part of the protections afforded. To wit:

"the author and authors of any map, chart, book or books already printed within these United States, being a citizen or citizens thereof....shall have the sole right and liberty of printing, reprinting, publishing and vending such map, chart, book or books...."

And you can feel free to look that up right here. If you'd like some precedent, we got that, too - a case going back to the 1800's when a photographer prevailed against a lithographer who lifted his work to the tune of 85,000 copies. And, in fact, due to the expense and complexity of reproducing printed works and distributing them (at that time), it was exactly this sort of abuse copyright (in this country) was meant to prevent - i.e. publishers were obligated to secure license before printing or distributing any author's works.

Feel free to look up others as well - like Mark Twain, Noah Webster, Ben Franklin...

It would be a cosmic joke for us to have made it these past hundreds of thousands of slow years, only to be wiped out by a dumb rock in the next ~30 years or so that matter most in our evolution to post-humanity.

--

It would be a cosmic joke for us to have made it these past hundreds of thousands of slow years, only to be wiped out by a dumb rock in the next ~30 years or so that matter most in our evolution to post-humanity.

--

A quote I have hanging on my wall:

"Innovation makes enemies of all those who prospered under the old regime, and only lukewarm support is forthcoming from those who would prosper under the new."
-- Niccolo Machiavelli

That will only become more true as the pace of change quickens. Artificial scarcity be damned.

(Right beside that quote I've also got a few Singularity quotes, about the exponential nature of progress, and the likelihood of mankind surving these next few critical decades.)

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The most basic flaw in the professor's assumptions is thinking that $1 in the hands of one individual means as much as it does for another. If you consider what different people would be willing to do to earn that dollar in the first place, this is clearly not the case.

Or one can go (e.g.) to the original from IBM (first introduced in 1967).

Don't forget that nanotech isn't the end-all be-all tech that may kill us - AI will be advancing alongside nano and other tech on our way to Singularity.

Unless intelligence augmentation (IA & AI) is near on the horizon to reduce that gap, it's very likely we'll end up destroying ourselves.

--

NeXTstep has had recordability since 1988.

So where is it?

Examples of macro languages and applications which used NXJournaler:

• Puppeteer
• COWS was a fun project.
• Simon Says

You might also be interested in TickleServices, which was an early example of macro languages applied to a GUI. TickleServices worked via the Services menu in all NeXTSTEP applications (and now all MacOS X apps). I believe someone has more or less reinvented TickleServices in an Applescript guise now. Don't remember the name.

i think the likelier explanation is that you're full of s---

From the stuff above, it appears the most likely explanation is that you don't know how to Google.

NeXT was an early pioneer in a lot of stuff. My experience is that when the OS-9'ers say "Feature Foo was thrown out by the NeXT people who didn't get it", usually about 90% of the time NeXTSTEP had that feature as well, and the NeXTers are mad about it getting tossed out as well.

Hmm, I'd heard about that Carnegie book, but didn't realize it had that kind of stuff in it.

I've heard there aren't that many good career counselors ... sounds like you really got a good deal.

Incidentally, I was just reading this article which you might find interesting.

" . . . with the advancement of technology, it has become common practice for on-air personalities across the industry -- such as Rush Limbaugh -- to anchor programs remotely . . ."

And just what technology might that be - Pharmacology?

. . . but seriously folks . . .

This reminds me of the movie Quiz Show from 1994. After people find out that certain charasmatic contestants have been supplied with the questions before the show, an executive from the program testifies before Congress. His statement in the movie goes something like: "Hey - we never said is was factual, we only said it was entertaining.". Here is some testimony from what I believe is the actual 1950's hearing.

As far as radio goes, disco was bad enough, now that it's all pre-packaged and rotated - I'll stick to playing my guitar with my friends. However, for actual entertainment, and a counter-voice to Limbaugh (et. al.), I'm eagerly anticipating the new channel and programming involving Al Franken

May the Universe continue to bless itself - through You!

The way he pays for everything else ... by cutting taxes, of course!