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There are real world examples of this - the idea that prime numbers are an infinite series, for example. Since nobody has ever been able to find an end to the series, it still stands, but you can't *prove* it.

You're getting completely confused here. There are an infinite number of prime numbers, this was proven thousands (yes, thousands) of years ago, and there is absolutely no controversy about the fact. It isn't even one of the subjects where the nature of "proof" gets argued philosophical...to the extent that anything at all can be proven mathematically, primes have been proven to be infinite.

The oldest and easiest proof is simple. If primes are finite, then there must be some prime N that is the biggest. Multiply together all primes and add one: x=1 + 2*3*5*7*...*N. This resulting x is not divisible by any prime...it has remainder 1 when divided by 2 or by 3 or by 7...up to N. But that means that x is prime, yet it is obviously bigger than the biggest prime N. Contradiction, therefore our premise, that there is a largest prime N, is false, therefore there are infinite primes.

Maybe you're thinking of the strangeness exhibited by "grue"?

The "grue" property is defined as:

x is grue if and only if x is green and is observed before the year 2000, or x is blue and is not observed before the year 2000. This is a "weird" property but there is no obvious reason why we couldn't make up such a property. Now, let us pretend that the x referred to above are actually emeralds. Further, pretend that we have observed many emeralds and they have all been green and thus have had the property "grue". Then, intuitively, this should increase our belief that the next emerald we observe will be green and that it will be grue. This intuition is fine until New Years Eve in 1999. Now our pretend emeralds observed in 2000 should be grue and therefore blue and not green. (quotation source )

Web search on Nelson Goodman for more on that.

At Rutgers University's Physics Lecture Hall there is a PRS (Personal Response System) setup. Basically, every student who ever takes a Physics class has to buy a $30 transmitter to participate in class. It works via IR so the system can get overloaded with a large class. However, the IDs of the units responding show up in a dynamic list on the projected screen as you respond (so you can see if your answer got registered). The system then displays a graph (or presumably other information) detailing which answers were chosen. It's good because it can't hurt your grade if you are there to press the button (you get one point for pressing the button, two for being right, out of a possible one point). It's bad because you lose points off your PRS portion of the grade if you don't go to class or forget your transmitter. You cannot borrow someone else's because an ID is hard coded into the device and then one to one associated with your student ID.

At Rutgers University's Physics Lecture Hall there is a PRS (Personal Response System) setup. Basically, every student who ever takes a Physics class has to buy a $30 transmitter to participate in class. It works via IR so the system can get overloaded with a large class. However, the IDs of the units responding show up in a dynamic list on the projected screen as you respond (so you can see if your answer got registered). The system then displays a graph (or presumably other information) detailing which answers were chosen. It's good because it can't hurt your grade if you are there to press the button (you get one point for pressing the button, two for being right, out of a possible one point). It's bad because you lose points off your PRS portion of the grade if you don't go to class or forget your transmitter. You cannot borrow someone else's because an ID is hard coded into the device and then one to one associated with your student ID.

S -> 1 a u d i t 2 b u g f i x 2 3 d _ f 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 m p l y _ G o 12 _ S 5 f f .
1 -> 10 4 11 13 _ 8 _
2 -> 9 1
3 -> a d
4 -> e a
5 -> t u
6 -> r e
7 -> s _
8 -> t o
9 -> . \n
10 -> C 14 a n 13 , _ m o 6 _ 6 3 a b 14 _ c 12 e _ i 7
11 -> s i
12 -> o d
13 -> e r
14 -> l e

I see your "graphic design principles" and raise you "a grammar and style reference."

I have a relative who is really into the Bigfoot scene. The Bigfoot believers are quite committed. They make a lot of mistakes because of that, though. What is really interesting to me is how so many of the same thought errors get made in radically different areas of human belief.

Carl Sagan's The Demon-Haunted World is an interesting investigation of the entire phenomenon.

It is a terribly complex mental exercise to absorb all of the information in modern life and make intelligent decisions. The fact is that there are far too many claims to investigate for anybody to examine all of them with the necessary care. So we have to rely on the consensus of experts to make decisions. And the organizations necessary for consensus have the same flaws as all human hierarchal bodies.

Here are some of the various brands of kooky ideas that I have come across:

The AIDS Myth The medical analysis is surprisingly deep. A lot of qualified people have weighed in on this idea.
Carbohydrates not calories. They claim that our genes are still adapting to the modern high-carbohydrate diet, and that is why so many of us are so fat. (Enter Atkins.)
Democracy is not good government
Global Warming. Discussed on Slashdot a number of times
Shakespeare did not write Shakespeare Joe Sobran thinks that the Earl of Oxford wrote everything attributed to Shakespeare of Stratford on Avon.
Race and IQ Probably true, but kooky nonetheless.
Multiregional Evolution You can find most of Wolpoff's papers that are cited here somewhere online. I recommend "Bottlenecks and Pleistocene Human Evolution" and "Modern Human Ancestry at the Peripheries: A Test of the Replacement Theory." Wolpoff is kooky because there are very few anthropoligists left who will side with the Multiregional theory over the Out of Africa theory. (Wolpoff technically supports an Out of Africa theory, but that is how everyone refers to the debate.)

And here is one that I will actually advocate: Bohmian Mechanics It is about as kooky as you can get for a physicist, but I am convinced that it beats QM on the merits.

Mirror hosted by CMU's Field Robotics Center: here.

Mirror hosted by Rutgers: here

Mirror hosted by CMU Computing Services: here

Yes we know that the external Red Team website is hosted on IIS and powered by ASP. We're working on fixing these two bugs. =) Also to our defense, our internal technical web is powered by TWiki on Linux with Apache.

Here, Courtesy of Rutgers.

I posted a question in the forum.

A Member of the Rutgers University Student Linux Users Group has created just such a thing here at RU using PHP and MySQL. The site is hosted on our server here:

http://ruslug.rutgers.edu/bookswap/

I'm not completely familiar with the project - there's an "about this site" page, but no real mention of a license in regards to the php scripts being used. The author's link is on the about page - try emailing him.

Hope that helps and good luck sticking it to those bastards at efollet who, whether you know it yet or not, probably run your school's bookstore!

A Member of the Rutgers University Student Linux Users Group has created just such a thing here at RU using PHP and MySQL. The site is hosted on our server here:

http://ruslug.rutgers.edu/bookswap/

I'm not completely familiar with the project - there's an "about this site" page, but no real mention of a license in regards to the php scripts being used. The author's link is on the about page - try emailing him.

Hope that helps and good luck sticking it to those bastards at efollet who, whether you know it yet or not, probably run your school's bookstore!

A Member of the Rutgers University Student Linux Users Group has created just such a thing here at RU using PHP and MySQL. The site is hosted on our server here:

http://ruslug.rutgers.edu/bookswap/

I'm not completely familiar with the project - there's an "about this site" page, but no real mention of a license in regards to the php scripts being used. The author's link is on the about page - try emailing him.

Hope that helps and good luck sticking it to those bastards at efollet who, whether you know it yet or not, probably run your school's bookstore!

There's also http://ruslug.rutgers.edu/~mcgrof/802.11g/ if you're interested in open-source drivers.

Both use the Intersil Prism GT chipset. Intersil is very open about their design, and supports the development of open source drivers for Linux and other operating systems.

The PrismGT driver is here, written by Intersil and released under the GPL. It still has some issues - the license needs to be clarified on a few files, it doesn't fully support wireless extensions, and some people have reported crashes and throughput problems. But AFAIK, it's the only 802.11g chipset with decent open-source drivers - MadWIFI (for Atheros cards) calls itself a GPL driver, but it requires you to load binary code into your kernel - the Intersil driver requires you to upload a binary firmware image to the card, but NOT into your kernel (I'd be OK with this, as long as you don't have to agree to any license to get the firmware image).

In theory, the Prism Duette chipset is also supported by this driver. The chipset supports 802.11a/b/g, but I haven't seen any a/b/g cards based on it.

Some people have mentioned that new 802.11g chipsets will be available soon, with better open-source support, but I have no idea what makes them think that. Each reference to this has been extremely vague, nobody has even named a chipset when they say this. As a wild guess, it might be Mercury5g - this mailing list message mentions that the Synad Mercury5g chipset will have a HostAP driver, but no evidence of that claim is provided. It also doesn't mention open-source, and no cards using that chipset are available, so I'm not holding my breath.

Actually, TIA would prove to be very useful in addressing inner city problems. The gov't could keep a watch on things so as to prevent some serious shit from happening again.

You mean, of course, that the US never starts anything, and has never started anything. I agree fully; our country does us proud.

There's no Linux equivalent to Microsoft Money

Your right but GnuCash is pretty darn close... It now supports OFX imports, and the great thing about GnuCash... You don't have to pay for upgrades, as soon as there is an open source tax software, or plugin I think it will be better.

Same with Microsoft Streets&Trips -- there's simply no equivalent.

Use mapquest. No I am just kidding on that one, I don't know if there is an equivelant. That software came with your laptop / computer didn't it?

I can't connect a Linux box to my work's VPN either -- there's no working client.

We use Cisco VPN's they have a client for linux, the funny thing is that you can find them almost anywhere, especially around university's... Your work's configuration might be different, but there usually is good docs that you can follow For Example.

And if I managed to do so, what would I use to connect to the Exchange server to get my emails and appointments?

Ximian's Evolution is very outlook like, and Ximian Connector works with Exchange, I wouldn't say flawlessly, due to speed issues that I seem to be having, it looks like it connects to the Exchange server over port 80 but I could be wrong, however it works, to manage appointments, contacts, global contacts, and mail.

Linux games are few and far between, especially 3D games.
Oh, and watching DVDs? (Legally, that is)

Oh so watching DVD's on any Lindows box is illegal? And most of the extremely popular FPS games have a native linux port and if not come pretty darn close from WineX (I play WCIII on Redhat 7.1, can't play any Half Life game though)

What sucks is even though this is a rebuttle I agree whole heartedly. That is why open formats are so important, it allows consumers choices. The more consumers that make companies realize that they want open standards, the better it is for all of us.

Gimme a break! What does two "'mean pentagrams', two hexagons, and a 'golden mean rectangle'" have to do with Phi? There is not a single bond length or angle in the nucleotides, deoxyribose sugar or the phosphates in the structure of DNA that is 1.618 anything. If the structure of DNA happened to have a "golden mean square and a platinum triangle" would that also point to some underlying universal mystery? Do you also find predictions of the Kennedy assassination, the stock market crash of '29, the emergence of AIDS, and the like, in the Bible? Sheesh!

Why would you compile the source on every server?

Seriously, this topic is pretty lame. The poster answers his own question, and the whole EOL issue is really a non-issue in open source.

Who cares if a particular piece of software is no longer supported by a particular distro? You can get either an updated version from the authors, or a precompiled version from another distro.

You can also use tools like rpm2tgz to convert rpms to gzipped tarballs, which install on pretty much any linux system.

Here's a real question: Is it possible to end-of-life a piece of software that's being actively supported by the authors/others.other distros? I don't think so. So you've EOL'd RHat [insert version here]? Big deal. Anyone can still run it w. the latest kernels and the latest software copied from your "consumer" cds. In the Open source world, EOL by corporate dictate is pretty much a pipe dream.

What a waste of technology! Think about it: They're going to go to the effort of doing a brute-force identification of weeds (i.e. looking at every plant in every row, instead of using a broadly-targeted agent). But then they fall back on an old-school method of killing the weed -- by poisoning. Yeah, targeted poisoning, but it's a refinement of an undesirable technology.

Now, it seems to me that if you're going to the effort of imaging the leaves of virtually every stalk coming out of the ground, you ought to take the opportunity to do something very selective and low-impact to the surrounding plants. Like pull the damn thing out, roots and all. No expense of chemical agents, no breeding of resistant weed species, and it produces a product that people are willing to pay a premium for. I'm pretty sure that having weeds pulled robotically would not impact the qualification of a product as "organic." :)

Just my $0.02US, but I'd sooner feed my kids methodically/robotically well-managed organic food than feed them foodstuffs protected by well-targeted herbicides and pesticides. Why play that lottery if you have the technological means to avoid it?

Sorry for the repost. Was logged out.

A couple years back, I created a player for these 'movies' in perl (which is in use on blinkenlights.nl. It's a bit more than the one-liner, but it does play them smoothly (no flickering). It also supports Asciimation movies of other sizes (like Simon's Death of Jar Jar).

Player is available at http://mordor.rutgers.edu/~sauron/asciimation/asci imation.pl.

Try not to abuse this server too much, please.

A couple years back, I created a player for these 'movies' in perl (which is in use on blinkenlights.nl. It's a bit more than the one-liner, but it does play them smoothly (no flickering). It also supports Asciimation movies of other sizes (like Simon's Death of Jar Jar).

Player is available at
http://mordor.rutgers.edu/~sauron/asciimation/as ci imation.pl.

Try not to abuse this server too much, please.

The UC Berkeley Computer Science Department teaches a somewhat similar class - CS 195: Social Implications of Computing. You might find some interesting reading material in the publications mentioned in their Fall 2002 Syllabus.

There's sure to be some fodder for discussion on the web pages of the Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility, Electronic Frontier Foundation, ACM SIGCAS: Special Interest Group on Computers and Society, ACM Computing & Public Policy, Computers, Freedom, & Privacy Conference, and The IEEE Society on Social Implications of Technology, to name just a few.

If you need to hit the DB from some type of programming environment I'd recommend using a DB with an implementation of the XML:DB API. I've been looking at Xindice, and Software AG's Tamino, both of which support the Java XML:DB API, which actually seems rather nice.

As for the speed, I can't comment from personal experience, but according to the Software AG folks it's quite fast even for their customers who are indexing terabytes of data. Of course, that's pr bunny speak so it's to be taken with a grain of salt.

I'm not sure exactly how native XML DB's work, but from my research (e.g.)it seems that implementations are based on hierarchical data bases: e.g. Adabas -> Tamino.

Trying to make a Suffix Tree

Sorry, I gotta stop coding and go get some fresh air.

Derek

You could use Java's RMI for this Jav architecture, which is the second fastest distrubited call framework available, and second only to sockets...SOAP, DCOM, and CORBA are respectably slower, CORBA being the slowest of the bunch.

Second, RMI runs over JRMP (a Java native protocol) or IIOP (CORBA's protocol). JRMP is slightly faster than IIOP, but both are comparable. In a multi-langauge environment IIOP would allow you to use CORBA to integrate your Java apps with apps written in other languages.

This is not to say that SOAP is useless, or even bad. The broad base of support SOAP enjoys means it could become a lowest common denominator; a kind of the middleware for middle. But it by no means replaces CORBA. There are many good articles on this topic from both the pro-SOAP and the pro-CORBA sides. As another poster said, when making these sorts of decisions it is important to research both sides rather than trying to measure the oppinion of slashdot.

I firmly believe that SOAP and CORBA are complimentary technologies.

You accuse me of putting words in your mouth...therefore they add no weight to my argument

Sorry, it sounded like they were supposed to weigh against my argument. Another apology in advance, this post got way too long chuckle.

Your little thought experiment about doing DeCSS in your head

You may think it is silly and meaningless, but I actually want to make it reality. I'll probably have to go with the multi-person version though. Sometimes people do weird irrational and irritating things, but you can't imprison them for it without rock solid justification.

reductio ad absurbum... doesn't apply to social issues.

It applies to anything, so long as it is used properly. It's just easier to make an error when using it on social issues. If a simple case has a property and the simple case really is a member of the general case then you have proven the general case CAN have that property. Some properties will apply to the entire general case. A single false case will invalidate an entire math proof and a single unconstitutional case will invalidate an entire law.

I think you objection is trivial enough that if you are capable of doing DeCSS using only thoughts then you should be allowed to do that.

Yes you should, but the DMCA says it is a crime. It doesn't matter how or why you circumvent. It doesn't matter if I'm doing it with PC, with my brain, or with a tinker toy. You seem to find intent important. DMCA says you can't circumvent even if you are blind and need to use a text-to-speach reader.

Either the DMCA is valid and thinking-DeCSS is a crime or the DMCA is unconstitutional and it is not a crime. Congress passes plenty of invalid laws...

"An act of Congress repugnant to the Constitution is not law." -- Marbury vs. Madison, Supreme court.
Between 1803 and 1990 127 congressional acts were declared unconstitutional. 127 times in 187 years. Between 1995 and 2000 another 24 congressional acts were declared unconstitutional. 24 times in 5 years! The rate unconstitutional acts has skyrocketed. I don't know about cases in 2001 and up.

(Of course, you wouldn't be allowed to transcribe the results of your computation.)

Of course I can. There is no law against writing something down, nor should there be. It cannot cause harm. The potential for harm lies in distribution, and that is what copyright law prohibits. And even then it depends upon the circumstances. I cannot sell it, but I can use it in a classroom.

>reading it backwards...
You can probably do all that non-DeCSS stuff if you want

Probably?? Oh my. Maybe we should outlaw math teachers too.

Books and DVDs are more different than they are alike. The salient difference is that books are analog and DVDs are digital.

You fell into the MPAA/RIAA propaganda. They are trying to invent new rules using the magical and mysterious word "digital". Analog vs digital makes no difference, both are copyrighted content stored on a physical object.

I bet you rejected my last paragraph, but that's ok. DVD's and books are both digital anyway (ignoring any illustrations). A book is a sequence of discrete values (letters), just like a DVD. The copyright on text is a copyright on digital information. (The writing in the book and the writing on DVD's both have random analog edges, but they carry no information and are not copyrighted.)

If you want a fair comparison, you need to compare data to data or medium to medium.

No, copyright is always on data, never on the medium. I can store my novel in a book, on a CD, a clay tablet, or in braille and it's all protected by the same copyright.

You wouldn't be allowed to rearrange the letters into the text of a different, copyrighted book.

Sure I can. It's my property and I can chop it up any way I like. That is purely personal use and has precisely zero impact on the market for the work. Pure fair use. What I can't do is sell it as another book.

permitted to cut up the DVD with a pair of scissors and turn it into a mural.

And with a really good set of scissors (lab equipment) I can cut up a DVD and turn it into a different DVD. The book/DVD analogy is really strong, you break it I'll fix it :) (At least within the current context)

You are trying to compare the physical medium of the book to the data

I was going to dissagree, but I see you are right in that I phrased it carelessly. Everything I said is still valid though. Both books and disks can be cut up and put back together. Both books and disks can have their contents blotted out and overwritten (easy on a Read/Write disks, possible but a pain on Recordables or ROM). All methods change the contents, it doesn't matter if the media gets scrambled or not.

You also don't have the right to scan your book with OCR

Sure I do. It's a cut-and dry case of fair use. If you took me to court I would win on summary judgement. It does not violate someone else's right to a limited monopoly selling copies of that data (copyright).

or give photocopies to your friends.

Probably not, but I could keep the OCR scan I made and give the book to a friend.

it is also wrong to say that they[circumvention/violation] have nothing to do with each other.

They are independant. You can (A)do neither, (B)do both, (C)just circumvent, or (D)just violate.

We can ignore case (A). Case (B) is already a violation crime, the circumvention crime is redundant. (C) you punish someone who has caused no harm. (D) circumvention law is superfluous.

Anti-circumvention law is at best redundant or superfluous. At worst it is (C) unjust.

John Searle's Chinese room

I never intened to indicate the computer was thinking in a conscious sense hehe. I meant to indicate it didn't matter if it was done with a computer or not. Too often legislators and judges get confused when computers are involved and think they need new laws. It's like having special law about commiting murder with a spoon.

I do believe that some day we will make conscious machines. Humans are conscious machines running in carbon-water-etc. A suitably powerful computer could presicely emulate an every atom composing a person and produce consciousness. I have no problem with the "paradox" that the chinese room understands chinese while the person does not. A person can certainly preform calculations without any conscious understanding of what those calculations represent.

When we have artificial consciousness those "mere calculations" will have to aquire unique rules for dealing with the same way "mere atoms" aquire special rules for dealing with them when those atoms happen to make up a person. It will be an extremely complex issue and I have no idea how we will work it out.

BTW, my turn for an off-the-wall question :)
Do you happen to know your personality profile? I'm an INTP. I would speculate you are an ISTJ or ESTJ.

-

according to this paper on soap, your argument doesn't hold water. Perl xml parsing is actually equal but not better than Java or .NET.

As an example of how Sequitur works, the string 'abcabdabcabd' produces the following grammar rules:

1. 2 c 2 d
2. a b

1 1

The usage counts of the rules are available as output options.

The picture from the farked site is here: disney.jpg

It's not the vitamins I'm worried about, it's the 'nutraceuticals' that these patches deliver. This, I consider to be taking drugs.

He asserts explicitly that human beings are simply thinking (biological) machines.

I know if *I* lived in NJ I would want to move elsewhere as soon as possible!

You fail to mention however, what's so frikkin' terrific about where you live! And this comment gets modded up! I'm not a liberator, just a meta-moderator! ;)

Any hare-brain can take a crack at the garden state. That's easy. It is the home to much industrial pollution, Frank Sinatra and Joe Piscopo. And it is the most populated state in the union which is why auto insurance is so overpriced and almost impossible to get; even if you have a perfect driving record, and even then it's no guarantee!

But one thing to consider in the fact that NJ is the most poulated state in the US is how diverse its population is. It is also has a large population of extremely wealthy people (including Ex-Presidents and CEOs of multinational corporations) who would ostensibly have enough money to live anywhere they choose.

People drive down the NJ Turnpike and think they have a sense of what the whole state is about. But if you venture out of Edison NJ you'd realize that NJ has some of the best beaches in the country. The ONLY state in US that has better beachesis Hawaii. I've been to many California beaches, including Newport Beach, Balboa and Dayna Point but I haven't found a single one that I would consider to be better than Long Beach Island.

One thing to understand about NJ is that it is almost a miniature representation of the entire United States. The north is densely populated, industrial and with a diverse ethnic population. The south is primarily agricultural, rural and tourism oriented. NJ is in almost as important a farming state as anywhere in the midwest, and has a larger population (per capita) of horses than Montana!

So you and all you ignorant ass moderators who modded this comment UP can put that THAT in your crack-pipes and smoke it!

YO! COWBOY NEAL! WHERE THE FREAKIN' HELL ARE MY MODERATOR POINTS WHEN I NEED THEM!!!!

This is a copy and paste of a response made to a comment I made a while back, it really opened my eyes as to *why* chinese are so into open source. I believe that Chinese frugalness (as explained by the below re-post) is to blame for the rampant piracy of The Two Towers.

Before I get to the repost i'd like to add in my own link and two cents from the SVCD Faq I read.

• The political objectives of the Chinese government. It was decided that DVD - while undoubtedly a good technical specification as such - is all too tightly controlled by DVD Consortium, a closed body of foreign companies. The Chinese government did not quite like the idea that the domestic home electronics industry would have to pay royalties to foreign companies in order to manufacture next generation video disc products for Chinese people. It was calculated that creating a royalty-free, full-fledged video disc format on their own would be a major long-term win for the domestic industry. Moreover, this was also considered an issue of national pride; an opportunity to flex some technical muscle, and to send a clear signal to the outside world that China has enough critical mass to be able to ignore foreign entertainment standards it does not want to conform to. (Chinese politicians and researchers are now keen to celebrate SVCD as the first international high-tech standard that has been developed in China.) Finally, it was also thought that a Chinese video disc standard would help in pressuring the DVD Consortium to keep the licensing fees down, at least for the Chinese market.

Cool huh? It's a part of their culture folks. How can Hollywood fight an entire culture of 4 billion people?

The only thing that strikes us Americans as odd is the communist goverment that is in power there. As geeks we are appalled that they would dare install a firewall to protect their people, which in our eyes is a violation of their free speech, but this is what their society just does. How do you convince this culture of 4 billion people that what they are doing is not being frugal but stealing

It would begin at a goverment level, and the police would have to crack down on the street vendors that bootleg it. Will it happen? I doubt it, from the above snippet of the SVCD faq I bet the goverment is celebrating yet another victory.

Acually, I read this as Gravity Wars

I thought something looked odd there, but I couldn't put my finger on it. Of course, activist judges don't always make politically motivated decisions, and that's not really what I meant to say. They are prone to, however. The most recent notorious example that springs to mind is the New Jersey Supreme Court opinion in The New Jersey Democratic Party, Inc., et al. v. Hon. David Samson, et al. where they decided to out-and-out ignore the plain language of the election code (19:13-20) which only allows political parties to nominate substitute candidates before the 51st day prior to an election. This was so that the Democrats could run the popular, but heretofore retired, Frank Lautenberg in place of Robert Toricelli, who had dropped out of the race amidst a cloud of scandal. This could not have been anything other than a political decision.

As for Bork "working for" Netscape at the time he evaluated the case against MS, I think you'll find it's pretty much always customary to pay a lawyer when you're asking for his legal opinion. It's his job, you know. Significantly, perhaps, he did not advocate breaking MS up as you might have expected him to if we was merely acting as Netscape's mouthpiece. And long after he dropped off the payroll, he continued to write against MS in publications like National Review even though his opinion on this subject is unpopular to the political right.

Also, most reputable scholars accept a much earlier date for 1 Timothy, from 64 to 120 CE.

I don't get why slashdot geeks are giving this the thumbs down. At the end of the day, it's one more choice for a hardened geek and as such can only be a good thing.

In addition to the choice angle, Solaris on x86 is there for 3 key reasons:

1) A proportion of us that opposed its death would be quite happy to offer payment to continue its existance - there are a reasonable number of developers & admins with time and money already invested in Solaris on x86 for one reason or another.

2) There will be those who take Solaris on x86 as a chance to learn before they jump in to the world of Solaris on Sparc - For example, it may be better than investing in a Sparc just to pass your exams.

3) For those who want to push Solaris on Sparc, it may be an easy way to prove to management that Solaris does have the advantages, again without buying the Sparc kit - hell you could even sneak it in in just the same way BSD and Linux advocates do, under the radar.

Sure, Solaris on x86 isn't perfect and certainly doesn't perform as well as on the Sparc architecture but is this any great surprise - Sun are trying to hit a moving target when it comes to modern PC hardware - if you stick to whats supported you should be fine.

The other criticism is that you need to install additional tools, but isn't this the case with any OS. These days, Solaris is supplied with most of the key open source tools. Additionally, resources like Rutgers RPM archive + apt-get bootstrap kit along with SunFreeware make getting a Solaris box up easy.

As I see it, this news has 4 (i/c the aspect of choice) positive points and 0 negative. Having said that, the news is moot to me, I run Sparc :>

Speaking of logic, here's a October 1989 Scientific American article detailing the tinkertoy tic-tac-toe playing machine. Anybody want to make this out of these water logic components? Didn't think so... ;)

It never ceases to amaze me that amateur science enthusiasts are building stuff like that ...

According to Tim's web page: "I am currently a graduate student in the Physics Department at Rutgers University. My primary area of interest is in Particle accelerators. I have worked at Fermilab in the Beams Division." Then it goes on to list accelerator talks he's given, accelerators he's worked at, and publications on accelerators he's written.

So how exactly does that make him an "amateur science enthusiast?"

Here's just another opinion. This is a great general grammer guide, but as the author says, "Nothing here is carved in stone, and many comments are matters of personal preference."

You can't protect anything that user has physical access to

I think that the designers of the IBM 4758 cryptographic coprocessors might disagree. The IBM4732 is supposed to be tampre proof.

Ofcourse if you were to say that you can't protect anything that users have access to at a reasonable price. Then you would be correct. You would also be correct to say that security is hard and must be integrated into the system from the first design stages and not hacked on later.

For those who are interested: Further information about the relation of Chinese politics, culture, and its relation to the open source movement and its mammoth "piracy" market can be found below:

I am, for one. (Describes the relation between ancient Chinese values and its flourishing open-source movement)

"Imitation Nation", an article about the relation of Chinese culture and its "pirated" merchandise market

A paper on intellectual property in China, written by Sheng Ding

I believe this will inform those who are interested in China's fast-paced markets. Enjoy the read.

So we debated it on our web forums... and on our IRC channel (#ruslug on openprojects)... and we concluded that we shouldn't. I personally concluded that we shouldn't since the name doesn't really matter. What counts is the definition of the OS. And in that definition it should be stated that it's really a GNU/X/etc system. I believe that for respect for GNU, we should refer to it as GNU/Linux only to imply respect for GNU. But in general, when talking about Linux, it really shouldn't matter what the hell we call it.

I told Stallman about our results, but he seemed rather dissapointed about it. I'm curious as to what spawned this FAQ to show up on GNU's web site. My suite-mate is desperate to get to our Algorythms class, so I can't really post much more! eek. Laters1!!%1!

A common mistake among English speakers is that in English, haiku would still be composed of seventeen syllables. It is not.

Here is a very good article on it (featuring my favorite haiku BTW).

It comes down to the semantics of English versus Japanese. Under English there is a much more constrictive syntax, thus the meaning of a phrase can change just by resorting the words (Japanese, OTOH, is more resilient). Why is this important? 17 syllables in English can carry much more meaning than 17 syllables in Japanese.

Most haiku authors agree that the rough mean in English should be 12 in three phrases. Of course that is just a starting point at best. One of Ezra Pound's better known haiku is 18 syllables in two lines. In the end haiku creation is not a rote process.

Is there any Chinese Slashdotters...that can provide a cultural insight as to why china would be so open to open source?

First of all I would like to state that I am of pure Chinese descent.

To answer your question, I believe there are 3 factors that make China very open to open source: Confucianism, the WTO, and Microsoft licensing.

The centuries-old mentality of being extremly frugal with one's money or possesions. Though this idea is ancient, the Communist government began to encourage the use of this virtue in times of famine and hardship. This article from Time Magazine titled "Overeating Dying in China" further explains:

"In the early 1980s when some nouveau rich squandered their money on restaurants delicacies and government officials took advantage of their jobs to attend luxurious feasts, a distorted concept was built up in most Chinese's minds: the wealthier one is, the more fatty foods are on your dinning table.

The grumbles about upstarts' arrogance and the government officials' corruption turned into general disapproval. People began to look favorably at the ancient Chinese maxim which praises abstinence in consumption....Considering the 30 million destitute Chinese struggling in remote mountainous areas and those laid-off work who are living a hard life, traditional virtues like fighting one's way up and building the country through hardship and thrift are still highly encouraged by the Chinese government. "

This "frugal ideal", reinvigorated in the minds of mainland Chinese, compounded with ancient Confucian values of filial piety encourage the development and acceptance of open source software over propeitery ones in China. The bit about filial piety applies to the corporate environment of Chinese businesses. Filial piety in Chinese families enforce the younger family members' respect of older ones. This encourages the younger members' to set priorities that value the importance of the older family member (typically the father, mother, and grandparents). Chinese children, raised under this mentality, carry these priorities over to their workplace where they place their upmost importance upon the boss and senior officials (formerly occupied by older family members).

In most, if not all jobs in China involving internal technology, the IT manager must find software that will create a stable infrastructure while saving as much money as possible. This is where the "frugal mentality" and the rigid set of priorities converge to brighten the appeal of open source software. Because China is attempting to gain full membership within the WTO, which requires its adherance to strict IP rules, the country began an enormous crackdown on the "pirated" software industry. Using pirated (MS) software no longer was an option, as it used to be 10 years ago. Another path would be to purchase MS software licenses. However, the thought of accepting the dinosauric financial demands of Microsoft licensing contracts clashed with the frugal mentality prolific with Chinese tech companies, and the set of priorities spawned by Confucian filial piety led them to consider the amount of funds that could be saved and allocated for other departments by not buying licenses. In turn, Chinese techs were left with another option: Open source software, more specifically Linuix. The legal and cost-free nature of the penguin OS became an appealing option to the Chinese techs, and in turn took the opportunity to develop and integrate it in to their corporate infrastructure.

Chinese cultural traditions of filial piety and frugality are further explained in this excerpt of the site "Paul Herbig's Working Papers":

Chinese Network

The Chinese commonwealth is a group of small Chinese companies from all over the world affiliated with each other, protecting and taking care of each others businesses. They are also referred to as 'Greater China', or the 'Chinese Network'.

The survival mentality and the Confucian tradition of patriarchal authority, form the values of a typical Chinese entrepreneur - one who seeks to control his own small dynasty. These so call life raft values are:

l.Thrift ensures survival.
2.A high, even irrational, level of savings is desirable, regardless of immediate needs.
3.Hard work to the point of exhaustion is necessary to ward off the many hazards present in an unpredictable world.
4.The only people you can trust are family-- and a business enterprise is created as a familial life raft.
5.The judgment of an incompetent relative in the family business is more reliable than that of a competent stranger.
6.Obedience to patriarchal authority is essential to maintaining coherence and direction for the enterprise;
7.Investment must be based on kinship or clan affiliations ,not abstract principles.
8.Tangible goods, like real estate ,natural resources, and gold bars are preferable to intangibles like illiquid securities or intellectuals properties.
9.Keep your bags packed at all times,day or night (Kao,p.25).
Unlike the Japanese Keiretsu, the Chinese network is an open system for all Chinese entrepreneurs all over the world. They watch for each others businesses and help those who are in need. These Chinese entrepreneurs have a give - and - take relationship. The network is usually formed by joint ventures, weddings, political opportunities and common cultures. Ownership of the company are usually passed to relatives, regardless of their educational background or competency (the classic example is An Wang's passing of his company, Wang Computers, to his mediocre son instead of professional managers--which ended in failure). Generation after generation, no matter in what culture they were brought up, every Chinese seeks control and security of their businesses.
The first Chinese generation has a survival and Confucius mentality. Every business decision is made for the future of the family. Unlike the old generation, the younger generation are born in other countries outside of mainland China. They do not only carry the Chinese culture, but the one they were born in as well. This generation, especially if born in a western country, has a sense of individualism. Companies like Winbond,a high-tech company in Taiwan, which considers themselves to be a Chinese company , believes that you should respect your family and love ones but you have to set your mind on what is right for the company. D.Y. Yang,owner of Winbond, says, "A Chinese company depends less on data and more on intuition,feelings,and people." But on the other hand, he also mentions, "Of course you have to respect the family business structure, but since this is a high tech company,individual contributions are important (Kao,p31)."
---snip

I have heard about the open markets in china where you can purchase bootlegs of any software for near the cost of the CD. If the choice is between M$ at .5 dollars and Linux at .5 dollars linux wins.

On a side note, frugality, combined with Communist ideals and Confucian values led to the explosive growth of the pirated software and media industry in China, as this essay written by Rutgers Univesity student Sheng Ding explains:

"Confucius's concept of the transmission of culture and Marx's views on the social nature of language and invention arose from very different ideological foundations. Nonetheless, because each school of thought in its own way saw intellectual creation as fundamentally a product of the larger society from which it emerged, neither elaborated a strong rationale for treating it as establishing private ownership interests.[15] Deeply influenced by these two ideologies, China falls behind all developed countries and many developing countries in the field of intellectual property protection. It is also not difficult to understand why most of Chinese did not know what were IPRs in 1980s."

Well, I am confident that this reply answers your question. More information about Chinese philosophies and other ideals that are involved in China's flourishing open source movement can be found below:

Paul Herbig's Working Papers

A Paper on IP Rights in China, by Sheng Ding

The Chinese Way with Money, an article from the Shanghai Star

According to a colleague at Rutgers:
Hand-held electronic devices that rely on high-frequency sound to repel mosquitoes have become surprisingly popular in recent years .... Scientific studies have repeatedly shown that electronic mosquito repellers do not prevent host seeking mosquitoes from biting. In most cases, the claims made by distributors border on fraud.

While your downloading this software, if you buy a NYC landmark from me, I'll throw in a set of Mr. Chiu's immortality rings at no extra charge!

can you say "pirated" - thats the main reason VCDs seem to have existed in Asian countries for YEARS now.

That's not the reason entirely. As the author of the article wrote, distribution and production costs are cheaper for VCDs than videotapes. As most Asian countries' populations (excluding Japan) have typically low average incomes, encouraging them to save money while distributing content by using the less expensive VCD. This is the reason why VCDs have been a popular format in Asia for the past few years.

They get used for anything that can be seen on TV, whether it be movies, TV, karaoke or educational productions.

There are more reasons why media is "pirated" in Asia. A popular, longstanding Asian mentality, which is Confucian in origin states that "knowledge is free". This "knowledge" includes videos, software, video games, books, movies, and almost all other forms of visual, and audio content. This excerpt of a paper written by a Rutgers University student further explains the beliefs behind digital piracy in the Asian country that has the largest pirate market in the Far East; China:

"Confucius's concept of the transmission of culture and Marx's views on the social nature of language and invention arose from very different ideological foundations. Nonetheless, because each school of thought in its own way saw intellectual creation as fundamentally a product of the larger society from which it emerged, neither elaborated a strong rationale for treating it as establishing private ownership interests. Deeply influenced by these two ideologies, China falls behind all developed countries and many developing countries in the field of intellectual property protection. It is also not difficult to understand why most of Chinese did not know what were IPRs in 1980s."

Also, another popular Asian mentality that states "if everyone does it, no one will be punished". As original products was brought in to China, demand for those products grew while the economy began to decline, finally taking a severe hit during the Asian stock market crisis of the late 1990s. Then pirates came to satiate that demand. This is yet another reason why "piracy" of brand-name "Western" merchandise to software has skyrocketed in the past 20 years. This excerpt of an article written by Lisa Movius of Salon.com further explains:

"China Record Co.'s Tang Haiyang recalls the evolution of piracy's acceptability. "No one thinks of it as theft anymore. At first, there was no choice but to pay 30 RMB [$3.60] for a real album, which is a day's salary for most. Then the pirates came along, at 10 RMB [$1.20] for a CD, and at first people were uncomfortable, and would still pay more for the real thing. But now, everyone's used to it, it's normal and accepted, and people just think, 'It's very cheap, very cheap, that's good!'""

As one can see, the connection can be made between VCD's popularity in Asia and the beliefs and financial situations of its' peoples are actually logical and economical--a low cost, lightweight media to meet small budgets and efficient, fast replication to drive the legal and non-legal media market.

Further information on "piracy" in Chinese countries can be found below. Note that some of the ideas and beliefs behind the creation of China's bootleg market also apply to other markets of Far East countries:

"Imitation Nation", an article written by Lisa Movius

"Preliminary Analysis of Intellectual Property Protection and Economic Development in China", an essay written by Sheng Ding


"To Steal A Book is an Elegant Offense: Intellectual Property Law in Chinese Civilization" by William P. Alford

I'd really like to see one of the checkpoint patches includeded in the mainline kernel series. There are several to choose from: EPCKPT, CRAK, CP.... Which one doesn't matter (feature wise), they all basically allow for the kernel to stop a process, save it's state and pages to a file, and then load and restart that process by request.

Yes, I could distribute a patched kernel across all of my systems. But then I'm tied to that kernel until whichever project I'm following updates their patch (or I update it myself, and I don't consider myself competent as a kernel hacker). This would be a really useful mainline feature for those of us in the scientific computing community. Wasn't there some talk of one of these going in 2.6 proper? --M

http://remus.rutgers.edu/~rhoads/PerilsofObedience . tml